The Red Book Magazine/Volume 42/Number 5/For the Sake of Business

by Frederick R. Bechdolt

[“Our money!” one cried in Spanish. “Shore,” Bronco Bob answered, “We'll get down to business now.”]

For The Sake of Business

By

Frederick R. Bechdolt.

Frederick Bechdolt often leaves his home in Monterey County, California, and back-tracks over grass-grown trails of the old Southwest to recapture something of the spirit of bygone days. Therefore when you read an “Old West” story by him, you may accept it as authentic, for the germ has been provided him by a participant in the scenes described.

THE men of Paradise were sitting in gloomy silence under the wooden awning in front of Beaver Smith's store. The only sound among the flat-roofed adobe buildings which stood like two rows of dismal sepulchers in the blistering sunlight was a penetrating voice emerging from the house of Beaver Smith across the way.

Within the narrow strip of shade afforded by the awning, the men of Paradise remained immobile; their backs were bent; they regarded the hard-beaten earth of the roadway before them with eyes in which there was no light of interest. They hardly seemed to heed the voice, whose arid vibrancy increased as time dragged by.

The store's long, cool interior behind them was empty of human kind. In the rear of the room, which was the only spot in all the town affording comfort to a human being on a summer day, there was no occupant. The whisky-barrel stood in solitude, surmounted by a pine board which bore the announcement: “Trust Makes Bust—All Goods Is Cash Here.”

Even a stranger would have been able to understand that all was not well in Paradise after reading that legend. Nor would the rankest stranger, had he been passing through the town that afternoon, have been in any doubt as to the smallness of esteem in which Ma Smith at present held her lord and master.

[He saw a head against the brown water. The loop whined, describing a wide circle.]

But it had needed neither the sign on the whisky-barrel nor the evidences of domestic infelicity which were assailing their ears to banish light-heartedness from the citizens out there on the sidewalk. The depression which had settled upon them and the whole town was but aggravated by these sour revelations of human frailty.

For Paradise was in a moribund condition. The mules which were indulging themselves in a series of skirmishes down in Pony Deal's corrals had been bickering there in idleness for a fortnight now. The wagons had not turned a wheel. And as one day had succeeded another, the listless pessimism which comes with idleness had grown among the leading citizens. So they sat now with backs bowed down by an indifference which was not serene, until at length the sun began to steal away their little strip of shade. Bull Louis was first to stir. He straightened slowly and looked across the street.

“Well,” he said drearily, “'we all have got our troubles.”

“She shore's a vig'rous woman.” Curt Wilcox stroked his mustache.

A door banged within the house opposite; and a moment later the leading merchant of Paradise appeared crossing the street. His manner was that of a man who has been undergoing an ordeal. When he had wiped his brow and stowed away his red bandana in a rear pocket of his overalls, he halted before them.

“That ol' woman of mine is plumb on the peck.” He shook his head. “What d'yo' reckon she wants? Why, she's got it into her haid she's goin' to buy a parlor organ. An organ!” He swore. “An' business this-a-way!” he stood there for a moment twiddling with his goat's beard. “Any word from the Bronco Mine?”

“I done rode over there this mo'nin',” Pony Deal growled, “an' they're still waitin'.”

BRONCO BOB LEE, Tinkham and Shotgun Moore were holding down the mine that summer. Where the cañon opened to the mesa, the gray dump scarred the hill's bare flank. Cacti and dry tumbleweeds showed among its sharp rock fragments; the planks at the shaft-mouth were warped by the suns of many seasons, and the weather had stained the disused windlass a pale gray. There may have been some old tools rusting about the place, for all that any of the partners knew. Such things as picks or drills did not beget their interest.

The adobe house with the bullet-marks on its thick walls stood a stone's-throw or so below the dump overlooking the mesa. A road wound like a dun-colored ribbon into the west, where the town of Paradise showed at the bluff's brink. Southward the plateau stretched away, to merge with distant mountains down in Mexico whose saw-toothed peaks took on new glories of gold and amethyst or cloaked themselves in new mantles of mauve and purple, according to the hour of the day.

Bronco Bob Lee, Tinkham and Shotgun Moore were standing before the adobe's open door. The torrid wind was cuffing their cheeks; and the sun, which had just crept over the eaves, was pouring its first volleys upon them as if from ambush. There was that in their spare frames and their lean, hard faces which made them fit into the savage border landscape; and as if they were a part of it, they neither took note of its beauties, nor did they heed its discomforts. They were gazing toward the southern mountains, from out of whose mysteries a line of dots was overdue to resolve itself, and crawling along the mesa's tawny surface, to swell into a train of pack-mules flanked by sombreroed outriders.

Twice every month that pack-train had come winding out of the distant sierra. Twice every month the swarthy smugglers from half a dozen Sonoran villages, with their huge silver-decked sombreros and their bell-mouthed trousers, had spread a blanket on the adobe's earthen floor, to bicker over prices in border Spanish with the three partners, tossing the enormous silver dollars of their country upon the cloth before them when the bargaining was done. Twice every month they had loaded their pack-mules with the dry-goods, hardware, cheap perfumes and gewgaws which were the only output of the Bronco Mine. And in the interims between those fortnightly visits, Pony Deal's wagon-train had brought from Tucson new stores of goods.

Trade begets trade. Sometimes Curt Wilcox and the cowboys from the Double Dobe Ranch dropped into Paradise to buy a few supplies; occasionally some of the hard-eyed rustlers from the San Simon rode into town for chewing-tobacco, whisky or cartridges. But such stray visitors brought little in the way of business. Upon the boarding of the teamsters and their custom at the store of Beaver Smith, prosperity depended. And the Bronco Mine's traffic with the Sonoran smugglers was the only thing that kept the wagons moving.

Two weeks ago the pack-train had failed to appear. Within the adobe house the calicoes and hardware, the boxes of scented soap and of coffee in paper packages, still lay ranged in neat piles along the walls, awaiting its arrival. Bronco Bob Lee and his partners stood without, and as the day wore on, they realized that for the second time their customers were overdue.

“No sign,” said Tinkham after a long while, and shoved forward his sweat-stained hat to scratch his grizzled crown. With his gray hairs the years had brought him none of that benignity which they usually bestow upon old men.

Shotgun Moore had dropped on one knee, tucking the high heel of his other boot under him cowboy fashion, while he rolled a cigarette.

“Reckon them greaser Customs men jumped 'em?” he hazarded.

Bronco Bob shook his head.

“This mo'nin',” said he, “Pony Deal rode over from town, while you fellers was out on the mesa. He done tol' me how he got word that them Turkey Crick outlaws was stealin' some cattle down acrosst the line two weeks ago. Looks like they might of run ag'in' 'em. That bunch has been a-comin' into Paradise too thick to suit me lately. They've smelt them dobe dollars, I reckon.”

Old Tinkham leaned forward, peering intently into the south.

“Some one a-comin' now,” he announced. “Right on a line between that pile of termatter cans an' the high peak in the middle of the range.”

The others looked where he directed, and saw a speck emerging from the hazy spaces where the mesa seemed to blend with the mountains. It came on slowly, growing by imperceptible degrees.

“Man on a mule,” Shotgun Moore declared some minutes later.

“The's two others away behind him,” Tinkham said. “Mebbe it's three. It's them, all right—what's left of 'em.”

Now as they watched, the rearward dots took form; the rider in the lead grew clearly visible. His head was sagging until the sombrero with its silver trappings bobbed grotesquely; sometimes the high crown pointed straight before him; his shoulders drooped; his body was limp, weaving from side to side. The mule began to mount the rise, and they got a glimpse of the man's swarthy face; the lips were swollen, scarred with bloody cracks, and there was blood upon his shirt.

“I'll fetch some water,” Tinkham said.

When they had helped him into the adobe's cool interior, the smuggler sat with his back braced against the wall, supping the last drops from the tin cup which old Tinkham had handed him.

“Muchas gracias.” His voice came in a crackling whisper, and he held forth the cup for more.

“There are six of us left,” he went on in his own tongue, when he had drunk again, “and three are wounded. Me, I am not hurt so badly as the other two.”

“How did it come?” asked Bronco Bob. The smuggler shook his head.

“How can I know? All that I see is this: My friend Ramirez is riding in the lead, and we are in the cañon where the cliffs come close. I am far back. Then one comes riding down to meet us in the trail, a great tall man with a thick mustache that reaches below his chin. He is alone, and so we let him come right on. I see him shaking Ramirez by the hand.” He flung out his own hands in a wide gesture. “I hear a shot and see Ramirez fall. This big man spurs his horse away, and it is like the Apaches; every rock is spitting the bullets upon us. What can we do? We ride to save our lives.”

He drank again.

“Two weeks ago,” he went on slowly, “we see some men in this same place and do not like the looks of them. So we turn back. Maybe, I think, these are the same. I do not know.”

“All right!” Bronco Bob Lee turned toward the door. “You come along with me, Tinkham; we'll saddle up.”

BEFORE the store of Beaver Smith, Bronco Bob Lee told the story to the men of Paradise in about ten words, and when the tale was done, he nodded to old Santa Cruz Casteñada, the wagon-master.

“Hook up four mules to that light rig,” said he. “Some of yo' boys will have to go with him to the cañon and help round up what's left of their outfit. Me an' Tinkham is headed after them outlaws. Curt, Beaver, Pony an' Bull Lewis—with us two, that makes six. We'd like to have yo' ride along.”

The group dissolved as he was speaking. Now men were hurrying along the brief wide street, and rawhide ropes were swinging under yellow dust-clouds in the corrals. Dogs barked: the rattle of hoofs mingled with the voices of the riders as the saddle-ponies dashed up the roadway to the hitching-rack. The pop-pop of a whiplash rose sharp above the clashing of iron-shod wheels, and the wagon came swinging round a corner with little Chilson, the crack skinner, holding the ribbons, and Santa Cruz beside him on the driver's seat. The mules broke from a brisk trot into a run, and vanished in a swirl of dust beyond the edge of town. Half a dozen horsemen followed, roweling their ponies.

Within the store of Beaver Smith the five who had been chosen dallied briefly with their leader. The murmur of their voices rose in the room's cool dimness.

“Two sawed-off shotguns is enough.”

“That big feller with the long mustache would be Larne.”

“The way the greaser told it, sounds like the' was eight or ten of them Turkey Crick outlaws with him in the deal.”

“Hey, Beaver! Be yo' shore them ca'tridges is buckshot?”

“Well, here's how!”

Their spurs tinkled on the hard earthen floor as they trooped forth into the glaring afternoon. They swung into their saddles and were off at the running walk.

“The idee,” Bronco Bob Lee told them as they went down the street, “is this: They'd fool round an hour or two at the cañon for fear they'd miss some of them dobe dollars. And they'll take the long road by the west side of the valley so's to keep in the clear from Paradise. We'll stick to the shortcut along the mesa. Our hosses is fresh; we ort to beat 'em to the Cold Springs Ranch.”

Where the road narrowed heading northward as it left the town, they strung out two and two. Pony Deal spurred up alongside the leader.

“Not meanin' to shove my nose into yo'r business,” said he, “but that there Turkey Crick bunch is a hard one.”

“Meanin',” the other interrupted, “I've left considerable many of the boys to go with the wagon. Well, it's this-a-way: Outside of Santa Cruz, we're better off without 'em. Little Chilson would be a-frettin' fer his fambly, and the rest is young fellers. They'd be plumb shore to overshoot or go to cuttin' loose before they ort. Six ag'in' ten aint so bad, when yo' have seen them six a-burnin' powder before.”

The mesa stretched on ahead of them, as tawny as a lion's skin, narrowing with perspective in the dim distance until it seemed to join the naked mountains at their right. The torrid breeze had died away. A huge heap of cumulus clouds was climbing over a ragged peak in the middle distance; it deepened in color from the snowy edges to a dull greenish black. Now and again an irregular line of lightning traversed its surface; and the dull rumble of thunder came from its murky depths. Off to the left, five miles or so away, the valley floor lay far beneath them, shimmering in the hot sunshine.

“I knowed this feller Larne back at Fort Griffin,” old Tinkham was telling Bull Lewis. “I helped hang his brother in the fall of seventy-three.”

“Reckon the Lowry boys is with him?” Pony Deal looked over his shoulder as he asked the question.

“Most likely.” The speaker paused long enough to worry off a mouthful from a plug of chewing tobacco. “They robbed the Benson stage together last spring. Then the's Jake Gauze; he throwed in with the bunch after he killed that dance-hall man in Silver City; an' the little one they call Doc that used to wear a poncho an' pack a sawed-off shotgun under it up in Abilene.”

“I see Larne drop a Mexican line-rider one day down on the Rio Grande,” Curt Wilcox remarked. “Done it just to show the boys what a good shot he was.” He thrust his wrist through the reins while he rolled a cigarette; and when he had lighted it: “Turkey Crick is gettin' tough. They tell me over in Tombstone that the sheriff dassen't send a deputy on that side of the Chiricahuas any more. Them outlaws an' rustlers has got a camp organized.”

As they rode on, the cloud in the north spread until it reached over a quarter of the heavens, shadowing the mesa and a portion of the plain below. The sultriness was increasing. Gray sheets of rain were hiding the flanks of the mountains. They crossed a gully and found a thread of dirty water in its bottom. A mile or two farther on, they came to an arroyo running belly deep. Bronco Bob Lee shook his head.

“Keeps on this-a-way, an' our sho'tcut said he.

The rain began to fall; within ten minutes they were drenched to the skin. Now. as they rode with heads bowed and backs bent, they heard the sullen booming of great waters before them. And when they reached the brink of the next arroyo, they saw a coffee-colored flood which swirled and boiled, biting from either shore huge chunks of earth which vanished the instant they struck the current.

“I mind a cattle-crossin' fu'ther up,” Curt Wilcox told the others, “where the hosses would stand a better show.”

THEY trailed behind him for a mile or so and found a narrow pathway where the steep bank eased away a bit. He dismounted, kicked off his boots and tied them behind the cantle. When they had followed his example, he said:

“This roan of mine's a good swimmer; I'll take the lead.”

He swung into the saddle. The pony tucked its hind legs under its belly and slid down the miry pathway. The brown current closed over it until but little save the head and outstretched neck was visible. One by one they spurred their reluctant horses after him, until they showed through the gray blur of falling rain only as dark forms drifting in a slanting line upon the tawny flood.

The cow-man held his eyes upon a crevice in the farther bank where the cattle-trail came out upon the mesa, guiding the roan, now by a word, now by the rein's light touch against its neck. At last the pony's forehoofs felt solid ground; it scrambled up the slope; another came on close behind, and thus three more, halting to shake themselves as they reached the level.

A voice rose from the swirling waters. Curt was in the act of dismounting when the cry reached his ears. In an instant he had settled himself back in the saddle and was freeing his reata from the pommel-strap. Now, as he whirled his pony, swinging the rawhide loop in his right hand, he saw a head against the brown water. It vanished, leaving a white patch of foam where it had been.

“It's Pony Deal,” Bull Lewis called.

The loop whined, describing a wide circle. The head appeared once more. Then the rope uncoiled as suddenly as a snake in the act of striking. It soared over the water in a series of wide curves. The curves straightened; the honda raced out along the slippery strands; the noose shrank as it traveled until there was less than a yard left. It settled down.

“Got him!” a voice announced.

The cow-man spurred his bronco landward; the reata tautened like a fiddle-string, shedding a nimbus of little drops; and Pony Deal shot forth from out the flood.

“Hoss tried to turn back,” he told them, “and I reckon he shoved his foot through the reins.” He started to rise, and with an oath sank down again. “My knee's twisted. I cain't put no weight on that laig at all.”

They used half an hour searching for the pony. At last they gave it up.

“Hoss gone,” the hapless owner growled. “Done lost my rifle, an' my boots on top of it. I aint a-goin' to be much good from now on, boys.”

“This roan of mine will carry double,” Curt Wilcox said. “One of yo' fellers help him up.”

The rain had stopped; the sky was clearing as they started on. It was as if, now that it had done them all the harm it could, the thunderstorm had made up its mind to depart. By the time they descended from the mesa, dusk was crawling up the long valley flats; the mountains had blended into an enormous dark wall. They reached the wagon-track that led toward the Cold Springs Ranch, and Bronco Bob Lee dismounted.

“Well, boys,” his voice came heavy through the gathering gloom, “here are their tracks. They've beat us to it.” He bent low, scanning the earth before him. “The's eight or ten of 'em, all right, an' they're ridin' hard.”

“Mebbe they'll hole up at the ranch till mo'nin',” Bull Lewis suggested.

“That,” the leader answered, “is our only chancet. Le's be shovin' on.”

AN hour went by. No word was said. The darkness thickened. Far off along the western skyline, the lightning flickered at long intervals. The road swung toward the mountains, and they began climbing among low, bare hills. The soft thudding of the hoofs, the creak of saddle-leather and the occasional faint jingle of a bit-chain were the only sounds. When they had gone a few miles farther, they halted in a little swale where a mesquite thicket made a black shadow. The Cold Springs Ranch lay a few hundred yards beyond.

“First time I was ever left to mind the hosses.” Pony Deal's voice was tinctured with chagrin as the others departed on foot. “I'd shore admire to go along.”

The road wound up a steep rise, and when they reached the summit, they saw the ranch buildings before them, two inky blots in the vague darkness. A light was burning in the house. Horses were stirring in the corral.

“Them ponies is wet,” the leader whispered. “I can smell the sweat from here. Curt, me an' you will go ahaid an' scout this out.”

They stole across the yard on tiptoe. A stream of light flowed toward them from a little window, leaving a puddle of bright yellow where it met the beaten earth. They skirted this, and as they neared the house, they heard voices within.

“Yo'r deal,” some one was saying. Bronco Bob's hand fell on the cow-man's shoulder.

“This way,” he breathed into the other's ear. They drew alongside the wall and saw the room's interior. Two coarse-grained young rowdies of the saddle were sitting at an oilcloth-covered table with the lamp between them, playing seven up.

Save for their presence, the place seemed to be empty. Their big sunburned faces were intent on the cards before them. Their voices came out into the night.

“Low fer me.” The speaker was chewing tobacco industriously.

“Yo' take the window,” Bronco Bob directed, “an' I'll take the door.”

“There's jack,” he heard the other player declare as he felt his way along the wall. Then he groped for the knob and found it.

“Oh, damn the cards,” the first voice growled.

Bronco Bob opened the door and entered with his six-shooter leveled upon them. They glanced up sharply, and their eyes narrowed, meeting the muzzle of the weapon, then lowered indifferently.

“Jest keep yo'r han's above the table,” Bob bade them quietly. “We got yo' covered from outside.”

“High, jack an' game fer you.” The tobacco-chewer spat and glanced sidelong at Bronco Bob. “'Pears like yo' fellers are after somebody.”

His companion grinned. “I reckon yo' boys come along about an hour too late.”

“How many was in the bunch?” Bronco Bob demanded.

“Search me,” the last speaker told him. “All I know is, they took ten hosses out of the corral an' left theirn here. —Yo'r deal, Ed. —How's things in Paradise?”

“So-so.” Bronco Bob opened the door. “Some of the boys is outside. Ef I was you, I'd stay right where yo' be.”

“Don't bother your haids about us,” they assured him. “We're plumb used to mindin' our own business. Make yo'selves to home.”

“What we ort to do,” Beaver Smith declared when they had learned the news down by the barn, “is to lynch them two. It would learn folks not to go lendin' their hosses to them outlaws every time they come along.”

“No use gettin' peevish,” Curt Wilcox admonished him. “Turkey Crick has got 'em all buffaloed in this end of the county.”

“Well,” Bull Lewis growled, “I reckon we may's well ride back home.”'

BRONCO BOB was crouching in the center of the group, rolling a cigarette. He spoke no word for a long time.

“Tinkham,” he said at last, “the' aint anybody knows you in Turkey Crick, is the'?”

“Only Larne,” the Texan drawled. “An' he aint seen me fer ten year an' better. What's on yo'r mind?”

Bronco Bob rose.

“We could leave Pony here at the ranch,” he murmured thoughtfully.

“I don't jest get yo',” said Bull Lewis.

“When I have rode this fur,” Bronco Bob answered, “I don't like to turn back.”

“But we cain't ketch them fellers this side of Turkey Crick,” Curt Wilcox cried. “And once them dobe dollars gets there, the hull damn town will fight fer 'em.”

Bronco Bob lighted his cigarette. The flare of the match revealed his face, and they saw his narrowed eyes dancing. The flame died, and his voice came to them through the darkness:

“Ef yo' boys are willin' to take a gambler's chancet, I reckon we can handle Turkey Crick. I've got a scheme.”

“Ef that's the case,” old Tinkham growled, “somebody better fetch up the hosses so's we can be shovin' on.”

AS dusk climbed slowly up the gulch, mantling the low adobe buildings which straggled along the bank of Turkey Creek, a stranger came riding down the road out of the mountains behind the town. Lights were winking from a few cabins; but the blacksmith shop and the general store which composed two-thirds of the business district were dark. The windows of the Gem Saloon emitted the only radiance which fell upon the street.

The stranger dallied for some minutes in the outskirts, then rode unhesitatingly to the hitching-rack in front of the saloon, and dismounted.

When he had entered the hamlet, there was no one else abroad. By the time he pulled up, one or two forms were showing in the dusk behind him, and as he was swinging from the saddle, there were three more in sight. It was quite evident that the citizens here had a real interest in newcomers.

But if the stranger was aware of this solicitude, it did not seem to disturb him. He walked across the pool of lamplight, apparently oblivious to any notice which he might have attracted, and pushed open the establishment's front door.

There were perhaps a dozen men in the long room. At the rear end as many highly rouged women were on the dance-floor. A fiddler was sitting on a little platform against the back wall. But the men were lounging around the card-tables, and one was sleeping in a chair; the women were talking listlessly in little groups; the fiddler's instrument lay beside him in its case; and the sleek-haired bartender was leaning over the polished counter engrossed in last week's issue of the Tombstone Epitaph. Of business there was no sign—only an air of general expectancy which became intensified the moment the front door swung open, and changed to hard-eyed scrutiny.

For a few seconds the stranger stood returning their look with an indifferent but comprehending glance which took in the whole room. He was a sparely built man with grizzled mustache and gray bushy brows. Like the other men in the room, he wore a big forty-five-caliber revolver swinging alongside his thigh. His flannel shirt and tight jean breeches were filmed with a coating of fine gray dust which proclaimed that he had ridden far that day. When he had done looking the room over, there showed in his walk, as he started toward the bar, the peculiar bowlegged stiffness, almost amounting to a limp, which betrays the man who spends much time in the saddle.

“Whisky fer me,” he told the bartender. “Call up the house.”

The room responded, down to the lanky fiddler, but there was no welcome in their eyes. Now the door swung open, and others entered to take their places in the long line, and while they poured their drinks, to regard the buyer in keen silence. He gulped his liquor and wiped his mustache with the back of his sunburned hand.

“It cuts,” he announced, “but the alkali lays thick. Le's have another.”

“Come fur?” his neighbor asked him while the second round was being poured.

“A week ago I left the Pecos,” he answered quietly.

“Yo' have rode hard,” another said.

“And if I have,”—the stranger's voice had grown a bare shade colder,—“that is my business, pardner.”

The implication behind those words seemed to dispel a little of the suspicion. The man who rode hard for reasons which he did not care to discuss was reasonably sure to find a welcome in Turkey Creek. But in the melting there was no capitulation. The populace was still far from being satisfied.

“This here is on the house,” the bartender announced. Several of the men in the line pressed further inquiries discreetly. When all had drunk again:

“This deadfall,” the stranger proclaimed, “looks plumb dreary. I hone fer music. Fill 'em up ag'in, an' then we dance. Get busy with that tune-box of yourn, Perfesser.”

The fiddle squeaked. The men of Turkey Creek chose their partners.

“A nice, long, old-fashioned polker,” the stranger announced. “Come on, girls; don't be bashful. Gents, shake a laig.”

But there was nothing long about the dance. The Gem Saloon was wasting no time on wayfarers this evening; and while they whirled their partners, the men of Turkey Creek were keeping one eye on the door. For the hour was near when ten of the community's foremost citizens were due to begin spending the dobe dollars which they had brought back that day from the flaming border.

THE music stopped. The crowd followed the stranger to the battered bar. The bottles came forth on the counter They filled their glasses, and while they were drinking, the front door opened.

“Jest as yo' be,” a voice bade them. They turned their heads to gaze into two pairs of large muzzles. The sawed-off shotguns swung, covering their front The stranger had leaped back from among them. His revolver was cocked and in his hand.

“Now everybody stick 'em up,” he ordered. “You there behind the bar—another move like that, an' I'll drill yo' between the eyes.” The bartender straightened his arms abruptly.

“All right, Tinkham.” Bronco Bob Lee came to the stranger's side. “Take this here grain-sack and dump their artillery into it. Hold 'em right where they are boys, while we c'lect.” He stood behind them in the middle of the room while the Texan relieved them of their firearms.

“Keep yo' waitin' very long?” he asked when the last pistol had been dropped into the sack.

“Yo' came right on the dot,” Tinkham replied. “I spotted the gang when I rode into town. Yo'll find 'em in the second cabin from the fur end of the street.”

“All right; I'll see yo' later.” Bronco Bob opened the door and backed out into the night. The other two took their places on either side of the entrance, regarding the men of Turkey Creek with narrowed eyes.

“A nice, long, dreamy waltz,” Bull Lewis ordered. “Strike up, Perfesser.”

There were signs of reluctance, but they vanished when the sawed-off shotgun showed symptoms of its bearer's willingness to use it.

“Choose yer pardners,” Tinkham shouted. The sounds of music floated out into the street along with the shuffling of feet.

Belated citizens, hearing these evidences of revelry, began drifting to the Gem. They came singly and in pairs, and their minds were intent on the celebration which they believed to be awaiting them as they reached the door. When they had opened it, they found themselves between two hard-eyed men, one of whom bore a leveled shotgun and the other a forty-five single-action revolver. Their hands went up. They felt themselves relieved of such weapons as they happened to be bearing, and they saw the hardware deposited in an open grain-sack. Then they went on to join the dance. Occasionally when the music lagged, one of the pair would spur them on.

“High, wide an' han'some!”

“All han's pass to the bar.”

So the commands came, and the men of Turkey Creek obeyed. They swung their partners and made the best of it, biding the moment when affairs would take a turn.

They were in the midst of a polka, with the fiddle squeaking and booted heels stamping the floor, when there came from up the gulch a sound which made them pause—one shot, then two in swift succession.

“Strike up ag'in,” old Tinkham shouted. “Lively! Shake a laig!”

By the time they were in full swing again, the street outside became noisy with passing horses. A moment later Bronco Bob Lee opened the front door.

“All right, boys,” he told his two friends. “We'll be shovin' on.” He smiled grimly on the dancers in the rear of the long room.

“Enj'y yo'selves,” he bade them. “Don't let our leavin' spile the fun.”

THEIR horses were waiting at the hitching-rack. They swung into the saddles.

“Take yo'r time,” the leader said. “We have got a long ride ahaid of us. An' nobody's goin' to foller. We done run off every pony in the place. Tinkham, yo' can dump that grain-sack anywheres along here.”

As they were coming out upon the flat, they heard the other two ahead of them.

“Any trouble gettin' the dinero?” Tinkham asked.

“Smooth as silk,” Bronco Bob answered. “We found 'em in Jake Gauze's cabin, jest the way yo' said. They was a-squabblin' over them dobe dollars, an' they never heard us till me an' Curt was in the door with ol' Beaver outside the window. Larne, he tried to draw his gun; an' Jake Gauze managed to crease Curt's laig. So we had to kill them two. But the others jest nachully quit.”

EIGHTEEN hours later six bewildered Mexicans sat on the earthen floor of the old adobe house at the Bronco Mine while Bronco Bob Lee, Tinkham and Shotgun Moore dumped the huge dobe dollars from two rawhide aparejos upon an outspread blanket. The silver made a goodly heap. The smugglers looked first at the pile and then at the faces of the partners, two of whom were red-eyed from weariness.

“Our money!” one cried in Spanish.

“Shore,” Bronco Bob answered briskly in the same tongue. “We'll get down to business now.”

In Paradise the long shadows were crawling between the low adobe buildings. Sounds carried far through the still air: the voices of the teamsters down in the corrals preparing for tomorrow's departure of the wagon-train, the clashing of Ma Smith's dishwashing, the blows of old Beaver's ax as he split the next morning's kindling from a pine board which bore the legend: “Trust Makes Bust—All Goods Is Cash Here.”

The noise of the ax ceased. Beaver picked up the sticks and carried them within the kitchen. A moment later his voice floated out through the open door.

“Oh, Ma—yo' may's well send to Tucson fer thet there organ. Things has picked up ag'in.