With a Price on His Head

by Eleanor H. Porter

 

With a Price on His Head.

Big, flaring posters, scattered far and wide, offered a reward of two thousand dollars. "Dead or alive," the posters read, but no one expected that the man would be anything but dead when the boys had finished with him. It had been a particularly atrocious murder, and the added charge of horse-stealing had not helped matters. Indeed, horses were more valuable than men in Beaver Creek.

Bill Haydon, the man whose name trailed across the posters in huge black letters, was comparatively a newcomer. He was not a favorite in the town. He drank little, talked less, and had an air of aloofness that the boys did not like. He neither told stories himself, nor laughed at those of others' telling. Most of the miners had come to hate him with a hatred that was as intense as it was unreasoning.

The sheriff did not lack for helpers in his man-hunt. Half the town turned out and swarmed up and down the mountain-side. The lonely hut that some one had pointed out as Haydon's home was visited by scores. The miners did not expect to find Haydon himself there; they had long ago learned that the man had been warned by an unknown friend; but they gloated over the signs of a hasty flight. Then they eased their wrath and fed their revenge by a wholesale wrecking of the poor little hut and all that it contained.

One, two, three days passed, and Haydon had not been found. Most of the searchers went hack to Beaver Creek and to work, but a few still kept up the hunt. Among these last was Jim Thatcher, at the head of a little company of men on the north side of the mountain. Jim was at the edge of a small opening in the forest when he found that he had out-distanced his companions, and was alone. He stopped for a moment and listened intently.

A leaf fluttered slowly down, and glinted like gold in the flickering sunlight. A bird chirped softly, and was answered from a neighboring tree. Then to the right sounded the rustling swish of dry leaves and the sharp snapping of a twig. There was some one else in the forest. Jim Thatcher slipped behind a convenient tree and waited breathlessly, his finger on the trigger of his revolver.

Nearer and nearer came the sound, and then—the weapon almost dropped from Jim's hand. A little girl, sunny-haired and bright-eyed, and with her arms full of broken twigs and branches, was threading her way among the trees. A moment more, and the small feet stumbled and the child lay prone almost at his side.

With a smothered exclamation Jim pocketed his revolver and sprang to her aid.

"Well, well, my little gal—up she comes!" he cried gaily, lifting the child to her feet.

She did not speak nor cry out; but her eyes were big and tear-dimmed as she held up to view a tiny wrist, down which ran a crimson line marking the path of a sharp-pointed twig.

"Well, now, that's too bad," murmured the man helplessly.

From a diminutive pocket the small maid produced an equally diminutive handkerchief. With this she daintily pecked at the tiny red drops which were beginning to appear up and down the crimson line.

"Here, let mo fix it," Jim suggested, taking the bit of cotton and winding it with his strong, clumsy fingers around the small wrist.

He fastened the bandage with a long fiber from a forest creeper. The child eyed his finished work with keen approval.

"Nice!" she vouchsafed; then a new interest flamed into her eyes. "Please, mister, he you a doctor?"

The woods rang with Jim's deep-throated laugh.

"A doctor!" he chuckled gleefully. "Well, now. little gal, the boys say I doctor folks sometimes— but I reckon 'tain't the way you mean!"

"But ye do doctor 'em?" she persisted eagerly. "Then, oh, please, won't yer help daddy?"

"Sho, I reckon my doctorin' wouldn't do him no good! What ails yer dad, eh? Whar is he?"

"He's right up there, in a great big hole in the rocks. He's sick, mister, awful sick. He don't come out, even fur sticks—I gets 'em."

She glanced down at the twigs and branches that she had dropped, and began to pick them up. With a sweep of his long arms Jim gathered the wood, and turned smiling eyes on his small companion.

"Thar, now, we're sure enough ready ter march. Come on. take me ter yer dad. an' we'll see what 'll happen."

The child skipped joyously; then her face suddenly lengthened in grave doubt.

"Daddy's got a price; can yer cure that?" she asked.

"A price?"

She nodded.

"On his head, yer know. He told me so. I can't see it—it don't seem ter show; but it's there—he said 'twas."

The little bundle of wood dropped to the ground, and Jim leaned heavily against a tree. The child watched him with anxious eyes.

"Is it—very bad?" she faltered.

He did not answer.

"Please, mister, it ain't dangerous, is it?" she appealed again. She was almost crying now. "Mister, he—he ain't goin' ter die?"

Jim's lips grew white and stern. Instinctively his right hand went to his hip pocket.

"Little gal, what's yer name?" he asked thickly.

"Jennie—Jennie Haydon; but daddy calls me——"

"Good God!" groaned Jim aloud.

The child came close to his side.

"Won't ye try ter cure daddy, please?" she begged piteously. "He don't look so awful sick; mebbe 'twouldn't be so hard as you think 'twould. He can walk 'round—why, he walked way up here. We've been walkin', oh, ever so long. Please, mister, daddy's all I got, since—since"—she stopped, her chin quivering—"since mammy died at Christmas," she went on with trembling voice. "Oh, ye don't think he's goin' ter die?"

Jim's knees bent under him, and he sank to the ground. He covered his face with his hands, and his broad shoulders heaved and shook.

"I can't—I can't!" he cried; "not by his own baby's hand!"

The little girl's eyes grew big with wonder. After a moment she timidly slipped one arm around Jim Thatcher's neck.

"Did you know him?" she asked. "Do you feel bad, too? Is a price such a awful bad thing ter have? Please, if you'd jest try ter cure him——"

The sound of a distant shout echoed through the forest. It brought Jim to his feet with a bound.

"I'll try, little gal, so help me God!" he muttered hoarsely. "Go, run quick ter yer dad—I'll do my best!"

Three minutes later he faced a band of weary, footsore men.

"'Tain't no use, boys, ter look 'round here; I've been all over the ground myself. Come on," he growled, turning sharply to the left and taking a zigzag course down the mountain; and because the men were fagged, or perhaps because Jim's leadership was never questioned, they followed without a word.

Three days later Jim wearily limped into Heaver Creek.

"Hey, Jim, ye missed all the fun!" crowed the first man he met. "We found the devil that killed Bill Smith, an' strung him up last night."

Jim's lips turned white.

"What, Haydon?" he gasped.

"Haydon? Not on yer life! 'Twarn't him that done it, after all. 'Twas that devil of a Chinaman at Baxter's. He did the whole job—owned up when we caught him t'other side o' the mountain with the mare!"

Eleanor H. Porter