The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 16

S Hugh’s horse trotted swiftly across the bridge, he was met by Fred Allward. Fred, even by starlight, gave the impression of laboring under great excitement. He pushed his horse up to jog along beside Fossil.

“Evening, Governor! I thought this was the only way to catch you alone. Look here, Hughie; Red Wolf is kind of in trouble.”

Hugh pulled Fossil up opposite Marten’s hut beside the Dinosaur’s hangar. “Marten’s in Cheyenne. Let’s go in here before some one sees me and interrupts us,” he said.

Within the shelter of the hut Fred, his eyes bright in the candle glow, told his story rapidly.

“We got the dinosaur pretty well crated up before the big snow caught us last week. Then we decided we’d go investigate Pink. We had a lot of trouble getting up to his ranch. You know he’s mostly curving in from the west, using Quaking Asp post office.

“Why, Hughie, he’s got a fine place there. He’s put up a lot of buildings and he’s got a Mormon family living in the house. But Pink’s the big chief.”

“How did you discover all this?” asked Hugh. He sat down and lighted his pipe, glad to forget for a moment the greater cares that weighed him down.

“O I left Red Wolf in the alfalfa stack beyond the home corrals, when we finally struck the place. It took us three days to work up the valley from our mesa. The snow was a million feet deep. We was half-dead when we got to Pink’s place. So I left Red Wolf and rolled up and banged on the kitchen door as brave as thunder. And the Mormon woman came to the door and in five minutes I knew all about the ranch and that Pink wasn’t expected home until the next day. So I invited Red Wolf and me there for the night.

“Peterson, the husband, was off for supplies with Pink, so Mrs. Peterson was there alone. She’d been warned evidently not to talk about the gray stallion. But next morning I chopped a load of squaw wood for her, while Red Wolf, he prowled off on a hunt. He came back in a couple of hours and give me a look which I knew meant he’d found what he wanted. So I borrowed some bacon from Mrs. Peterson and we beat it.

“And, Hughie, up in a kind of cave and natural corral, where there was not one chance in a thousand of any one locating him, was the stallion. I don’t suppose you ever did examine him, did you?”

“I got a clear idea of him in the fight on the bridge,” said Hugh. “A superb specimen.”

“Superb! I’ll say so! Why, Hughie, that horse is Morgan with a strain of Arab. I’ll bet you a hundred bits. And it’s not only that. He’s—well,” with a grin, “it’s like what they say about you. He’s got personality.”

Hugh grinned in response. “What happened next?”

“Well, do you know, Red Wolf sort of lost his head when he saw that horse. First time I ever saw him show excitement. The stallion was free in the corral and Red Wolf ropes him. And, of course, at that moment Pink comes along, riding hell-bent over our trail. And as he comes round the cedar clump that hides the cave, he takes a pot shot at old Red Wolf. He grazed the old Injun’s cheek. I hadn’t any gun, but I rode my horse into Pink’s. And old Red Wolf came up and took Pink’s gun and threw it away. Hughie, that old Sioux had sure gone amuck.”

“Good heavens, Fred, when did all this happen?”

“Three days ago. I know I’m making an awful long story of it. But I’m trying to make you see just how it was. I won’t try to describe that mix-up. Old Red Wolf he yells at me, ‘Keep off ’im, Fred! Keep off ’im! I’ll fix ’im for hurting Hughie. Me, I’ll fix ’im a heap.’ So me, I naturally backed off. Enjoying the round-up. Never thought of anything serious. Snow flying, you know, and horses squealing, and old Red Wolf banging into Pink’s pony and trying to rope Pink with his free hand. Pink swearing and trying to kick the old Injun with his spurs. Lord, it was funny. I laughed and laughed.

“And then, all of a sudden, Hughie, Red Wolf had Pink down in the snow, had his legs tied and helpless, and he stood up over him and made him a speech about that old ranch him and his wife stole and about you and what Pink had done to you. Why, that old Sioux had the whole thing, stuff I never heard of about your wife and that Miss Page taking you away from the plains, and last of all the stallion, which it appears was to go for you, special. Pink, he cussed all the time and rolled around and old Red Wolf jabbered until he actually foamed at the mouth. I see ’em do that the time the Sioux were working themselves up to the Fort Sioux massacre when I was a little kid.

“And then, by God, Red Wolf pulls out his hunting knife, jerks off Pink’s cap and takes a scalp lock off of him about the size of a two-bit piece.”

Hugh gasped and dropped his pipe. “What”

“I know it!” Fred held up his hand to prevent Hugh’s interrupting. “I let out a yell, almost as loud as Pink’s. Red Wolf, he put the scalp lock in his pocket, mounted his horse, and beat it, leading the gray stallion. I took my handkerchief and Pink’s and bandaged the top of his head before I untied him. Hughie, he was the maddest, sickest cowman I ever saw. But he didn’t make any move to go after Red Wolf then. And I took him back to his bunch of Petersons and dumped him. Then I came hot-foot in here to you.”

Hugh’s face in the candle light showed conflicting emotions that for a moment made speech impossible.

Finally he gasped, “Is the wound a bad one?”

“Mighty neat job, I’d say. He nipped out a piece of scalp on the crown of Pink’s old dome about as big as a quarter. Must be awful sore, and if he don’t get no balder it won’t show. Unless Pink gets proud of it and makes an exhibit of it. Of course, there’s mighty few living men has been scalped by a Sioux. Hughie, Red Wolf was a raving maniac! He had me scared. Why, I wouldn’t have dared to interfere if he’d tried to cut off Pink’s nose.”

The two men stared at each other. Hugh’s lips twitched, and in spite of his realization of the seriousness of the situation for his old friend Red Wolf, his eyes twinkled. Fred suddenly burst into a loud guffaw.

“My Lord, ain’t it funny, Hughie? Listen I know you are the Governor and you’d oughtn’t to laugh when your father-in-law has been scalped, but go ahead. I’ll never tell on you. Why, Hughie, all the way in, and it was the worst horseback ride I ever took, I laughed. So help me the twelve apostles, I did! I’d think of what that pink sausage had done to Red Wolf and to you. Him being at the bottom of getting the row going over the dam site and all. And all the stuff we couldn’t exactly kill him for.

“And Red Wolf punishing him this way. It’s absolutely perfect, Hughie.”

Hughie, still with the twinkle in his eye, heaved a great sigh. He rescued his pipe and refilled and lighted it. Fred watched him with interest.

“Governor, it’s the first time I’ve seen you look like a human being since before Bookie died.”

“I’m—I’m filled with a number of human thoughts, Fred,” said Hughie. “Among others, what shall I do for Red Wolf?”

Fred nodded. “That’s why I hurried to you. The poor old Injun is in serious trouble. And if he stays mad, he’s as liable as anything in the world to war whoop through Fort Sioux with that scalp lock in his button-hole.”

An inadvertent chuckle escaped Hugh. Fred emitted a joyous roar and quickly sobered himself to say, “It ain’t refined, Governor, for you to look amused.”

“I know it, Fred,” said Hugh, apologetically. “This will be terribly mortifying to Jessie and her mother. We’ve got to keep it quiet if we can.”

“Can’t be done,” returned Fred promptly. “Pink’s going to pose as a hero and turn the whole of Wyoming over to get Red Wolf jailed.”

“He won’t get Red Wolf jailed.” Hugh’s jaw was set in the familiar way. “He’ll not harm”

Fred interrupted, “—hair of Red Wolf’s head!” Then he went off again into helpless laughter.

Again Hugh chuckled, but broke off to say, “Nevertheless, Fred, it is serious for the dear old Indian and I’ve got to choke Pink off somehow.” He rose as he spoke. “I’ve got to go up to Cheyenne tomorrow morning. I’ll only be gone a day. You can reach me at the Plains Hotel. If Pink gets in here before I return, your job is to get him locked up, and wire me. If Red Wolf turns up, try to do the same by him.”

“‘Try’ is the right word, Governor! If he’s still mad when he turns up, me, I’ll crawl under the bed and stay there till you get back.”

“All right, old timer!” Hugh rocked with silent laughter for a moment, then went out and mounted his horse.

The next morning, before Mrs. Ellis, Johnny Parnell or any of his henchmen found him, Hugh had boarded the Limited for Cheyenne. Before midafternoon he had located old Charley Whitson and had asked him to arrange for a conference between Hugh and the “gang.”

The session was held in Hugh’s suite at the hotel. It did not look like a gang, this group of keen-eyed, brown faced plainsmen. But Hugh had no illusions as to its ability to drive a hard or an unclean bargain. He had come with his barter clearly planned, but, sitting before the waiting group, he was for a moment at a loss as to how to begin. His original idea had been to give no explanation as to motives. But, eyeing his audience with his new clarity of understanding, he believed that he ought to tell these men something of the truth. Yet, how to do it! He recalled vividly the reception old Whitson had given his confession the previous year. Many of the men before him had been at that hearing. But the experiment must be tried.

He began to talk about Mrs. Ellis. He told of his meeting with her and of her frank hostility toward him. He worked on carefully through the year, his hearers gradually allowing themselves to show a casual interest in his story. He told of his own indifference to the Code and of the bargain he had struck with Mrs. Ellis on entering the political fight. Finally he reached the point where he had induced Mrs. Ellis to give the reason for her interest in the Children’s Code. He paused for a moment after this, hoping that the set faces before him would soften, ever so little. But they did not. He hesitated, then he told the story of Dora. He told it very simply.

“I don’t know how it may affect you folks,” he said in closing. “After all, I can give you only a feeble picture of the thing. But to me it made the Children’s Code the most important legislation before Wyoming today. It gave me a new idea of the function of government and of the duty of the men at the head of the government. It made me see Mrs. Ellis as the foremost lawmaker of the state, the citizen to whom we ought to raise a monument, at the mention of whose name we ought to remove our hats.”

He paused.

“It’s a pretty story, Stewart,” said a sneering voice. “But it probably didn’t happen.”

Hugh flushed, and while fighting to keep a grip on himself, he slowly lighted a cigar. Old Whitson suddenly leaned forward in his chair, staring at Hugh’s hands.

“Stewart, your hands are peeling bad. By God, that water must have been boiling hot!”

Hugh hastily thrust his hands into his pockets and a dead silence filled the room. Then the voice that had sneered said with husky contrition, “Sorry I made that break, Stewart!”

Hugh rose slowly from his chair, looked from the window, then back at the waiting group.

“I have a proposition to make to you gentlemen,” he said. “It is this. If you will permit the Children’s Code to go through without any change whatever, and with no legislation that will weaken its efficiency, I will withdraw my opposition to the building of the dam at Thumb Butte.”

Old Charley Whitson came to his feet with a jerk. “Do you know what you’re saying, Stewart?”

“Yes, I do,” replied Hugh.

“But we all thought the saving of the fossils was all you came into politics for!” shouted Whitson.

“It was. But I’ve changed. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you for an hour.”

The old politician stared at Hugh, frankly bewildered. “What’s back of it, Stewart?”

“I’ve told you the story, Mr. Whitson. I’m no hand at intrigue,” replied Hugh.

Several of the men laughed. “What do you call it, then, Stewart?”

Hugh smiled and shook his head. There was a buzz of conversation, then Whitson exclaimed, “Look here, Stewart, there’s a devil of a lot of opposition to that Code in the state.”

“You mean,” asked Hugh innocently, “that you don’t want to make yourself unpopular, or that you can’t deliver?”

Whitson looked at Hugh sharply. Some one in the group gave a guffaw which was quickly suppressed. Whitson had his followers well in hand. There was no further interruption while the old warrior and the new warrior measured each other’s strength. Hugh had learned in the political fight in the year just ended how greatly, both financially and as a matter of his prestige as party leader, old Charley wanted the dam built at Fort Sioux. He had little doubt as to the outcome of the session. So he waited patiently.

“Can you deliver?” demanded the old man. “We understood the Eastern Electric got control of the tract, but we couldn’t verify it. They swore they didn’t.”

“My wife bought it in,” said Hugh.

“I’ll be hanged!” grunted Whitson. Then, curiously, “How are you going to justify yourself to the state for reneging?”

“Tell ’em the truth,” replied Hugh, simply.

Whitson scratched his head and grinned with extreme satisfaction. “Looks to me like we will all get some glory out of it, eh?”

A chuckle went round the room, and a grizzled member of the legislature who had been leading the filibuster, said, “And so you can’t intrigue, as you call it, Stewart?”

Hugh lifted his chin. “You fail to get the point, Brownell, that I think Whitson has finally got. What I’ve told you really happened.”

“O, I get that, old timer!” hastily explained Brownell. “But what impresses me is the skill with which you use facts.”

Hugh grinned and picked up his overcoat. “I’m going to get the six o’clock flyer back to Fort Sioux. There will be details, Whitson, which perhaps you won’t mind taking up with me in The Lariat, or wait for till after the inauguration.”

Whitson nodded. “By the way, how is the book-selling business, Stewart?”

“The trading in beadwork for bound magazines is noticeable,” replied Hugh. “But since Johnny Parnell went into politics the sale of western fiction has fallen off about ninety per cent.”

There was a laugh, during which Hugh made his way from the room.

Hugh had had some big moments in his life, but he was sure that to none of them had he looked forward as he did to the moment when he could tell Mrs. Ellis of the fate of the Code. He desired very much to choose exactly the right and dramatic moment for the announcement; when he should be alone with the mother of the Code and she, of course, in black despair. But somehow, big moments are difficult to arrange for. Johnny Parnell, Jessie and Mrs. Ellis arrived together the next morning before Hugh had finished shaving. Hugh gave the group a disgusted glance and lathered his chin again. None of the three heeded the look or the lather.

“Looks like we couldn’t put that swap over, Governor,” began-Johnny.

“Some one has sold out to the Whitson gang,” said Mrs. Ellis.

“We aren’t sure,” Jessie’s deliberate voice took up the tale. “But I was certain last night that I had the Cattlemen’s Committee solid. This morning the chairman sent me word that we’d better call off the whole matter.”

Hugh wiped his face, and knotted his tie with infinite care. Mrs. Ellis sat forward impatiently. “For heaven’s sake, Hughie, haven’t you waked up yet?”

“I don’t see why you’d thrust a load like this on a man who’s had no breakfast,” returned Hugh plaintively. “However, since you’re here, I may as well endure it.”

“Why did you go to Cheyenne yesterday?” demanded Mrs. Ellis, unmoved by Hugh’s plaint.

“Please, ma’am,” he replied, coming forward to stand meekly before her, “I went to Cheyenne to arrange with old Charley Whitson to let us put the Children’s Code through as it is.”

“Don’t joke about it, Hughie!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis.

“I’m not joking. I made a swap of my own.”

“You made a swap? What swap?” roared Johnny.

“I told him he could build the dam at Thumb Butte if he’d deliver us the Children’s Code.”

Dead silence, save for the rush of the river.

Finally, “But, Hughie, your stone birds!” gasped Johnny.

Hugh’s lips were a little stiff, but he replied cheerfully, “I’ll find them elsewhere, perhaps.”

Jessie stared at him, growing wonder in her deep-set eyes.

Mrs. Ellis, plump figure rigid, face white and set, put out an uncertain hand. “Hughie! Explain! I can’t stand it.”

Hugh, with his familiar wistful smile, took her hand in his and said: “It seemed a just sort of thing to do.” He paused, realizing that he must make himself clear. He turned slowly to his old position against the counter.

“I’ve been unhappy,” he said. “I’ve been lonely. I’ve been self-centered and socially blind. But since Bookie’s death” He paused. This was hard to do over again.

Jessie suddenly interrupted. “Mrs. Ellis, you don’t want him to explain, do you? That kind of an explanation hurts.”

“I don’t want to hurt him,” said Mrs. Ellis, pitifully. “I just want to know what happened. It’s life or death to me, Jessie.”

“Well,” Hugh went on abruptly, “I made up my mind that the Children’s Code was the biggest thing in Wyoming. So yesterday I had a conference with Charley Whitson and his gang. I offered them the thing they wanted most, the Thumb Butte dam site, and they snapped it up.”

Mrs. Ellis came slowly to her feet. “Hughie! Hughie! Hughie!”

Hugh tried to make his voice casual. “Fine, isn’t it!”

But Mrs. Ellis would not have it so. She threw her arms about him. “Hughie! Hughie!” and she broke down and began to cry.

Hugh, his arm about her heaving shoulders, smiled down on her gray head, but said nothing.

It was Johnny who saved the situation from becoming too poignant. “Well, old timer, for a man with an empty stomach, I’ll say you have done some business this morning,” he boomed.

Mrs. Ellis whirled around and wiped her eyes. “My heavens, Jessie! Can’t you get your husband some breakfast?”

Jessie, her violet eyes still full of wonder and an inscrutable sort of tenderness, shook her head with a mischievous smile. “I’d say that was your duty, Mrs. Ellis.”

The mother of the Code strangled a sob with a laugh. “I’d get him his breakfast for the rest of his life, if he wanted me to! No, don’t come, Jessie! I want to get the tray myself.”

She hurried out. Johnny, with the tact peculiar to himself, glanced from Hugh to Jessie. “I reckon she’ll load that tray so’s she’ll need help,” he grumbled, and he slammed the door behind him.

Hugh chuckled and lighted his pipe, then he looked at Jessie seriously. “In my opinion,” he said, “Mrs. Ellis is the biggest figure in Wyoming. Possibly in the country.”

“You and she will do some real work in Cheyenne,” Jessie nodded her head. “Hughie, does your sacrifice mean that you are giving up paleontology?”

Hugh’s answer was given carefully. “I haven’t arranged a program for myself. I’m trying to keep the long view that my work has given me. I’m feeling my way toward the light. I can see a million years behind me. Only one day ahead of me. It’s very difficult. But I think I’m moving with the procession. After a time I may know whither.” He laid a long hand on the block of fossil skin which still reposed beside the cash register, smoothed it gently, then looked up at Jessie with an expression of wistfulness. “But I don’t want to give up my work, for good and all. Jessie, do you think I ought to?”

“No!” cried Jessie “No!”

His regard of her for the first time during the interview became personal. “Do you know what you are saying, Jessie?”

“Yes, I know what I’m saying. You’ve sacrificed enough. You’ve suffered enough.”

“Sacrifice! Jessie, it was your legacy that gave Mrs. Ellis the Sioux Tract.”

“No, it wasn’t, Hughie! It was my legacy that gave the tract to you. I didn’t in the least care what became of that money except that it give you something tremendous. Of course, I’m glad that Mrs. Ellis has her Code. She is big and I am going to help her every way I can. But to me the point about the legacy is not that it delivered the Code, but that it allowed me to make up to you for some of the neglect of other years.”

“You shame me, Jessie,” said Hugh in a low voice.

She gave a gesture of impatience. “That’s not the feeling I want to give you.”

Hugh’s gaze rested on hers. “Jessie, I am only a shell of a man. The sort of feeling that I had for Miriam can come but once.”

“I don’t want the sort you gave her,” Jessie lifted her chin proudly. “I want what you can give the real me. The me that was born this summer out on the plains. The kind of love that you couldn’t give me before, nor Miriam, because you, the you that gave Mrs. Ellis her Code wasn’t born until after Miriam died.”

Hugh did not reply for a moment, then he said: “My love for Miriam was very real. Even though the person I thought she was never existed.”

“I know that,” Jessie’s lips quivered slightly, but her voice was steady, “and if you had remained the same man who gave Miriam that love, I’d know you could not care for me. Love is a curious thing, Hughie. If you are a growing, changing human being, old love drops away with the old habits of thought. It has to be so. If you are a person who reaches a young maturity and ceases to develop for good and all, first love will suffice.”

Hugh watched her intently. She was standing against the bookcase opposite, her splendid, gold-crowned head held proudly, her strong face with the new look of patience about the lips flushed by the endeavor to make him understand. The expression of wistfulness in his eyes deepened. He wanted to make Jessie feel how completely he did recognize the new fineness in her. He felt that all that she said was true. And yet, he believed that he had nothing save this new respect to offer her. Jessie did not wait for him to speak, however.

“You’re tired, Hughie,” she said slowly. “Much tireder than I. I’ve been concentrating all these months on one thing. While you’ve had demands on you that would break a common man.”

“Jessie! Jessie! I wish I could give you all. I don’t make them for myself. I know what I’ve been. Selfish. Selfish as even you can’t realize. But”

Her deliberate turning toward the door interrupted him. She did not speak until her hand was on the knob.

“I’m never going to bother you again, Hughie. Good-bye, my dear.” And she was gone; gone with, for the first time, the droop of failure in the upright line of her fine body.

The memory of this sudden change of posture stayed in the background of Hugh’s thought all that long, busy day.

Late that evening he and Mrs. Ellis were alone for a short time. The mother of the Code was in a beatific frame of mind and had turned off enough work during the day to have exhausted half a dozen women. It was, however, a keen and alert eye that she turned on Hugh.

“Jessie told me today that she was not going to Cheyenne with you, but that she was taking up a permanent residence at the ranch. Of course, a man shouldn’t ask his wife to give up her profession for any light reason. But I do wish she were going to the Governor’s mansion with you. Can’t it be arranged?”

“I don’t see how it can be, Mrs. Ellis.”

“Have you tried, Hughie?”

“I haven’t wanted to try. Surely, after our conversation of the other day, you know enough of the circumstances, Mrs. Ellis, to realize that I have nothing to offer Jessie. I’ve grown to admire her as I never did before. But I can’t pretend to be what I am not.”

“Nobody asks you to be,” sniffed Mrs. Ellis. “Hughie, I’m not a bit literary, but I have stored in my mind a few scraps of verse that mean a good deal to me. This is the best one of all:

Hugh looked at her with deep understanding in his eyes.

“That’s what made me give up the tract. At last I suffered enough to envisage truth.”

“Yes, Hughie, you did. You finally saw the relationship between birth and death, between childhood and social progress. But you still are blind about the impulse back of it all.”

“You mean the will to achieve,” agreed Hugh.

“Nonsense! Don’t be so disgustedly impersonal, Hughie! I mean love. Love of man for woman.”

Hughie walked slowly the length of the room and back. “What do you know about love, Mrs. Ellis?” he asked abruptly.

She looked up at him. “Hughie, I know a great deal about it. I know enough to realize that I’ve missed the real thing and that I’m too old now ever to have it.”

Hugh put his hand on her shoulder and for a long moment the two gazed into each other’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Hugh said at last.

“It’s quite all right with me,” Mrs. Ellis smiled. “The Code is big. But for you, I feel as your mother would have felt. I grudge your missing the great thing. You’ll not do your big work till you experience it.”

“I have experienced it,” said Hugh, quietly.

“Miriam Page,” Mrs. Ellis chose each word carefully, “drew on the selfish, work-centered side of your nature. It was so strongly developed a side that you experienced a simply tremendous sensation in connection with her. But, Hughie, you have left that side of you behind.”

“Perhaps I have,” agreed Hugh, “but, Mrs. Ellis, does that mean going back to Jessie?”

“Going back! Hughie, no! Going forward. Jessie has suffered too. And she is rather a tremendous person. Why, Hugh, just consider the attitude that she took toward Miriam Page!”

“No one appreciates it more than I do now,” Hugh sighed as he spoke. “But—” he hesitated, then exclaimed vehemently, “Good God! Jessie is a great lover! She deserves to be married to a great lover. And I am only a collector of fossils!”

There was a long silence in The Lariat. Finally Mrs. Ellis rose. “It’s been my big day, Hughie, thanks to you. Good night, my boy!”

And Hugh went to bed wondering just when and how he had come to such a derogatory opinion of himself as a lover.

Early the next morning Fred appeared, sidling into The Lariat in a manner at once mysterious and dignified. He had watched for his moment and Hugh was alone.

“I got Pink, Governor,” he said in a low voice.

“Where?” exclaimed Hugh.

“Down in Marten’s shack. I had to tell Marten when he got back yesterday. He sort of enticed him in. We saw him crossing the bridge at sun-up. He was heading for Doc Olson.”

“Has he seen you?” asked Hugh.

“Only my back view as I started up here for you. Can’t you come down there now?”

“Yes Fred, how would it do to turn Mrs. Morgan loose on him? I have quite a drag with her now, you know.”

Fred grinned. “I think Pink ought to be shot, but I’ll be hanged if I think he deserves that much punishment, to have her turned on him. But if you fail, we’ll try it.”

Pink was sitting with Marten at breakfast, his head turbaned like a Hindu’s, when Hugh entered the hut, Fred at his heels. He did not return Hugh’s greeting, and scowled at Fred’s cheerful announcement.

“Well, boys, here’s the Gray Stallion out for a morning’s warm up.”

Hugh sat down on a soap box beside the stove. “Fred told me about your trouble with Red Wolf, Pink,” he began casually. “What do you plan to do about it?”

“None of your blank business,” growled Pink.

“Here! Don’t you speak to the governor of this state like that,” snapped Marten.

“He’s my son-in-law,” sneered Pink.

“I don’t care if he’s your brother. You treat him with politeness or I’ll take a scalp lock out of you myself.” Marten was red of face.

“Never mind all that!” said Hugh, impatiently. “What I want from Pink is a square answer to a square question. What are you going to try to do to my old friend Red Wolf?”

“I’m going to shoot him.”

“You haven’t the nerve. Come, Pink, talk straight man’s talk to me, will you?”

Pink sat forward in his chair. “What am I going to do to that blank, blank Sioux? Well, sir, I’m going to have the law on him and I’ll have him sent over to Rawlins for the rest of his life. I got money. Plenty of it. And I’ll use it to get that Indian with.”

“No, Pink, I don’t think you will,” said Hugh “You got what you richly deserve, and you are going to take your punishment like a man. For you were a man in the old days, Pink, before you threw aside decency to put over the big treachery on me.”

“I’m to go thank the Injun for his delicate attentions, I suppose,” snarled Pink.

“No, you are just to let him alone and keep your mouth shut about the whole performance. Laying aside everything else, you have no right to mortify your wife and Jessie by starting that kind of a row going.”

“Very considerate of them all of a sudden, ain’t you?” grunted Pink.

“Something like that, yes,” agreed Hugh. “Pink, I don’t want to threaten you about this. I just want to appeal to your sense of decency. Forget your grudge against me! Why should you harbor one? You have won at every point. You put over the Thumb Butte site.”

“I did not! You’ve blocked it.”

“No, I haven’t I gave in on it.”

Pink blinked as though he were dizzy, and Hugh went on. “You have the dam site. You destroyed my greatest dinosaur. You forced me into politics. You have your horse ranch and plenty of money. You’ve acted like a skunk for a couple of years. And all you’ve had to pay for the whole achievement is a bit of scalp flesh. Forget Red Wolf and be a sport, Pink.”

As Pink listened to Hugh’s gentle, beguiling voice, his fat face softened. Hugh was infinitely persuasive as he leaned toward his father-in-law.

“Come now, Pink, you and I have stood back to back through many and varied fights. Let’s let by-gones go and start fresh. You let the gray stallion go and I’ll let the dinosaur go.”

Pink’s mouth had relaxed more and more, until Hugh mentioned the gray stallion. Then his face hardened instantly. He brought his fist down on the table.

“No! I want that horse and I’ll have it. And I’ll nail that Sioux’s hide up on the penitentiary door at Rawlins.”

He looked defiantly from Hugh to the others.

“Is that final, Pink?” asked Hugh.

“Yes, it is!” replied his father-in-law flatly.

“Very well!” Hugh turned to Marten. “I wish you’d go up to the Indian Massacre and bring Mrs. Morgan down here. And Marten, keep your lips tight.”

Marten picked up his mackinaw.

“Wait a minute!” said Pink. “Wait a minute!”

“No,” Hugh spoke grimly. “I’m through arguing with you, Pink. Go quickly, Marten.”

“But I don’t want her in on it. Anyhow,” with sudden cheerfulness, “she’s washed her hands of me and won’t come.”

“We’ll see,” said Hugh, and he took out his note-book and proceeded to go over the list of business that would press on him during the day.

In a remarkably short time, the jitney barked outside the hut and Mrs. Morgan came in, followed by Marten. Pink slumped sullenly in his chair. Hugh placed a chair for his mother-in-law, then stood against the wall.

“Mrs. Morgan,” he said, “Fred and Red Wolf located the gray stallion up on Pink’s ranch, last week. Red Wolf tried to get away with the stallion. Pink took a shot at the old Indian, the bullet grazing his cheek. Then Pink and Red Wolf had a fearful mix-up, which resulted in the old Sioux taking a piece of scalp about the size of a quarter off the top of Pink’s head. Then he got away, taking with him the scalp lock and the stallion. I’ve failed to persuade Pink not to make trouble over the matter. That’s why I’ve sent for you.”

Mrs. Morgan looked at her husband with interest. “Why, he must have gone crazy! He really scalped you, Pink? Well, you deserved it. I hope it will make a better man of you.”

“Do you mean to tell me that I shouldn’t have the law on that blank Sioux?” shouted Pink.

“I think he ought to be sent to jail, but you aren’t going to send him there, just the same. I’ve suffered all the mortification from your lack of refinement I ever intend to, Pink.”

“No, it ain’t refined to be scalped, I’ll admit that!” roared Pink. “And it won’t be refined for Red Wolf to be sent to Rawlins, either.”

“He’s not going to be sent to Rawlins,” declared Mrs. Morgan. She was sitting on the edge of her chair looking seriously from Pink to Hugh, her little bird-like head turning quickly from one to the other. “Let this thing get into the courts and all our early association with Red Wolf will come out. And while there was nothing illegal about what we did, I’ve begun to regret it and don’t want it aired. In fact, none of this must come out. It would mortify Jessie and me beyond words.”

Pink was outraged. He rose, shaking his fists to the ceiling. “And I’m to be scalped and robbed, by a blank Injun, to keep you from being mortified! Just let me tell you that I’m going to get that Indian and that horse if I have to tell the story to every man, woman and child in Wyoming!”

“O no you aren’t,” said Mrs. Morgan, complacently. She sat studying him as she might have studied a recalcitrant horse. “You are a mess, Pink,” she said, finally, “in every way I’ve washed my hands of you, and they are going to stay washed. But that doesn’t say I’m going to let you make a laughing stock of the family when I can prevent it. You come up to the hotel and go to bed and stay there till you can see sense.”

“I won’t!” shouted Pink.

“You’ll drive us back, won’t you, Marten?” asked Mrs. Morgan “Come along, Pink.”

“Want any help, Mrs. Morgan?” Fred started slowly toward Pink.

“No. He’ll come. It’s early enough so’s no one will notice us. My goodness, Pink, you are dirty. You come straight home and get a bath and go to bed.”

And Pink followed after her, casting as he did so an ugly glance at Hugh.

Hugh considered the glance for a moment, then he said to Fred: “Well, he’s safe for a few days, anyhow I hope we’ll have as much luck in getting hold of Red Wolf.”

But Red Wolf did not materialize, and in the preparations for the inaugural, Hugh almost forgot the matter.