Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 22/Number 2/The Fluctuating Package/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
A PAIR OF SIX-GUNS.
THE article was not a long one, but some enterprising press association had evidently got hold of the facts and telegraphed them all over the State. Very likely Durfee and Harrington, in view of the failure of their expedition to make good their fears, had released the information they had been keeping to themselves. If so, on reading that press report they must have regretted taking the public, into their confidence. The paper treated the affair as a huge joke.
- Not often is it the lot of a pair of boots to throw a scare into the division superintendent of a railroad and the traveling agent of an express company, and yet that is precisely what a pair of tan bluchers with eighteen-inch tops did to Messrs. Durfee and Harrington. Furthermore, on account of those boots a passenger train was held up for an hour until it could be overtaken by a special, and one entire division of a railroad experienced an attack of cold chills and was generally set by the ears. Messrs. Durfee and Harrington had an idea that the package containing the boots contained a clockwork bomb, and it seemed necessary for the two to overhaul the package in person before the boots exploded!
Here followed a brief and more or less serious account of the wild pursuit of Seventeen by the party in the way car, and of the overpowering relief experienced by Durfee and Harrington when they found the tan bluchers in the package instead of an infernal machine. And then came this illuminating bit:
- Two weeks ago a package was received by the express agent in Monte Carlo, Montana. It weighed three pounds when the agent took it in, and the weight had jumped to five pounds when he sent it out. In some way a clock of peculiar construction had been smuggled into the package, for the messenger heard a ticking inside, and the agent vows there was no such ticking while the package was being taken over the counter. Be this as it may, the innocent-appearing parcel "let go" in the town of Duane, making kindling of one perfectly good express car, but, fortunately and miraculously, injuring no one, not even the messenger. Durfee and Harrington had this matter in mind when they started in pursuit of the boots. In the circumstances, they are excusable. But suppose the package had really contained a bomb, and that the bomb had exploded while the passenger train was waiting at the Bluffton station to be overhauled. In that event, Durfee might have been sorry he had not wired the messenger to throw the package from the car with a pair of tongs while No. 17 proceeded on about its business.
"Jupiter!" murmured Ruthven as he laid aside his paper and started in on his breakfast. "So that was the reason for Harrington's rush for the superintendent's office, and the chase after Seventeen! The explanation of the cause of that fiasco, however, doesn't shed a ray of light upon the true mystery of that Barton package. Its weight becomes plus or minus at any old time and without rhyme or reason. The package has never been investigated, so far as I know, when it weighed more than six pounds. I wish I could have persuaded Grandy to turn it over to me. Possibly I can get a chance at it when the man conies in to take it out to the ranch."
When he had finished his breakfast, Ruthven went out on the hotel porch and seated himself in a comfortable chair. Weasel Morrison was much in his mind, and likewise Lois McKenzie. These two presented a baffling problem, and the more his mind dwelt upon their ride together from Williamsburg to Burt City the more bewildered he became.
He was still struggling in the mental mire when a mountain wagon, drawn by two fiery, half-tamed bronchos, came racing down the street. There was only one man in the wagon—a cowboy by the look of him—and he had the lines wrapped around his hands and was sawing them back and forth.
One horse appeared to be trying desperately to leap over the other. The driver was shouting all the time, and what he said was very expressive of the state of his feelings. He managed to guide the team to the hitching pole in front of Grandy's establishment. There one broncho tried to go into the store while its mate made an unsuccessful attempt to climb a telegraph pole.
"You, Ginger!" whooped the driver. "Say, I got a blame' good notion to skin ye alive. Pete, you mouse-colored, no-account son o' the Ole Nick, if I had you to the ranch I'd stand you on your bloomin' head. Whoa now, consarn ye!"
He fell out of the wagon, gathered himself up, and finally managed to get the team hitched. Then he got on the platform, pulled off his wide-brimmed hat, and mopped his brow with a handkerchief.
"Those bronks are kind of festive, eh, William?" remarked Grandy, appearing in the store door.
"You might call it that, Grandy," was the aggrieved reply, "and you might call it pure cussedness. Them two was only broke to saddle last fall, and to harness this spring. Not before this morning was they ever hitched together. They're real unsociable, seems like."
"How's Nate Wylie?"
"Sick abed. I had to come to town in his place. Old man's feet are botherin' him a heap, and he says by now you ort to have a pair o' boots he ordered from Burt City more'n a' month ago. He can't wear nothin' but a certain kind o' footgear, and the last pair he got from Burt City would be all right yet a while if some thievin' four-footed critter hadn't got away with one of 'em. I allow it's Sam Haynes' coyote dog, but we can't prove it on the animile. With only half the old pair left, Barton's got to have the new ones. Have they come?"
"There's a package here, and I allow it's just about the size to hold a pair of boots. But it's awful heavy, William."
"Light or heavy, I got to put right back with that package. Put a bag o' flour, a side o' bacon, and a case o' termaters in the wagon. I'll get the package and what mail there is, and hustle to run out the return trail."
"Why don't you drive a team that's got some respect for you, William?"
"Well, the old man wants Ginger and Pete to git used to each other, and so he put it up to me to drive 'em to town. I'll bet they'll know somebody's behind 'em before we get back to the Musselshell! I've stood about all them didoes I'm goin' to."
William went into the store, and Grandy followed him. "Here's the man I'm waiting for," thought Ruthven, "and I'll ride with him out to the ranch."
He went into the hotel and paid his bill; then he walked over to Grandy's to interview William. The latter was standing by the counter of the express department, tucking several letters and papers into the pocket of his coat and eying, with some concern, the package that lay in front of him. The store assistant was carrying out the provisions and putting them in the wagon.
"Just charge that extry express to Barton, Grandy," William was saying. "I ain't got a red with me."
"Sure," agreed Grandy.
"Are you from Tom Barton's ranch?" inquired Ruthven, stepping up to the cowboy.
The latter looked around, measured the speaker with keen eyes, and apparently was favorably impressed. "I am," he answered.
"My name's Ruthven"
The other's eye brightened. "Lewis Ruthven?" he asked.
"Yes. I reached town last night and want to get to the Musselshell. May I ride with you?"
"Well, I guess!" William backed away and continued to stare at Ruthven. "So you're the cimiroon that laid out Big Eph, huh? That bully and I come together oncet when I was down at the lower ranch, and I couldn't work for all of a week arterward. You backheeled him, they say, and tipped him headfirst into a water trough; then you pulled him out o' the trough and pounded his head agin' the side o' the cookhouse, cleanin' up on him complete. A lot of us didn't allow they was a man in Montana could do it. You're Emmet K.'s son, all right. Shake! My name's Martin, Bill Martin. I'm sure glad to meet up with the man that trimmed Big Eph."
This was the first intimation Ruthven had had that his differences with Big Eph had traveled so far. But he was glad, if the reports had won him the good will of Martin.
"He's right husky for an Easterner," remarked Grandy to Martin. "I reckoned Emmet K.'s son would be more pampered like, sort of run to seed with luxury and the good things o' life; but this man looks like the real goods."
Ruthven laughed. "Going right back to the ranch, Martin?" he queried.
"Right off. I got some boots here for the old man, and he's frettin' for 'em. I s'pose you got about three trunks, four grips, and a foldin' bathtub, hey? Git 'em loaded, then, and we'll hike."
"I'm traveling light this trip. All I've got with me is what I stand in."
"Bully for you! Come on!"
Martin picked up the package, took it out on the platform, and tossed it into the wagon. As it slammed into the wagon box, the startled bronchos made another attempt to get into the store and to climb the telegraph pole.
"Ain't it scandalous the way them critters act?" asked Martin m profound disgust. "I reckon we'll have to maneuver some in gittin' 'em unhitched and headed along the out trail. You climb in and take the lines while I cast off."
Ruthven obeyed. Martin got the hitching straps loose, and then, the instant they were freed and before he could get into the wagon, the team jumped for the middle of the street. They did not go far, however, before Ruthven stopped them by main strength. He did it so well that Martin complimented him in glowing terms and scrambled into the seat beside him.
"You'd nacherly think," said Martin, taking the reins, "that fifteen mile of runnin' from the ranch to town would smooth the kinks out of them; but no, they're just beginnin' to feel their oats. Keep your eye on the stuff in the rear and I'll let the cusses flicker. Hike, you heathens!" he added, with a yell, and away went the team on the jump.
At least three miles of trail were covered before the bronchos showed any signs of lessening their speed. After that, by degrees, they slowed to a more comfortable pace. Ruthven reached around and picked up the package. It was still at its top weight, so far as he could judge.
"I'd like to open this and take a look at the boots, Martin," said Ruthven.
"That wouldn't be accordin' to league rules, would it?" the cowboy answered. "The package is Barton's."
"I'm just curious, that's all. This package formed my main reason for coming to Dry Wash," and he briefly explained about the mysterious differences in weight which the parcel exhibited from time to time.
"Oh, shucks!" exclaimed Martin. "That sounds like fool talk. But you can see what's inside just as soon as we git to where we're goin'. Your uncle's plumb anxious about them boots, and he'll open the package the minute he gets his hands on it. It wouldn't be the proper caper for you and me to open it. You don't really think that package gits heavier and lighter all by itself, do you?"
"I don't know what to think. I've been guessing about the matter good and hard. I"
Right there he broke off his remarks suddenly. A man had jumped out from behind a clump of brush at the roadside, and the horses had halted so abruptly that the wagon almost ran over them. The man had a cap pulled down over his eyes, and his coat collar turned up about his ears, and he was leveling two large and businesslike revolvers. Between the bronchos' heads he had a clear and comprehensive view of the pair on the seat of the mountain wagon. One weapon was trained upon Martin, and the other upon Ruthven.
"What d'you know about that!" exclaimed the startled cowboy. "Neighbor, are you tryin' to stick us up? If you are you'll find poor pickin', so far as this hits me."
Another man, his face similarly covered, emerged from the brush and started toward the wagon.
"You got a package there for Tom Barton?" said the man with the guns. "If you have, toss it over. I need a pair of boots myself."
Just at that moment Ginger and Pete had some frenzied fancies, and undertook maneuvers both startling and unexpected. They jumped forward and sideways, and Ruthven's heels went into the air and he turned a back somersault into the rear of the wagon. What Martin was doing, at the same time, he was in no position to determine.