Bucky O'Connor: A Tale of the Unfenced Border by William MacLeod Raine (free ebook reader for pc TXT) 📖

discover the gent that sat for this photo it might help us. You don't by any chance know him, do you, Val?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Not in my rogues' gallery, Bucky.”

The ranger again examined the faded picture. A resemblance in it to somebody he had met recently haunted vaguely his memory. As he looked the indefinite suggestion grew sharp and clear. It was a photograph of the showman who had called himself Hardman. All the trimmings were lacking, to be sure—the fierce mustache, the long hair, the buckskin trappings, none of them were here. But beyond a doubt it was the same shifty-eyed villain. Nor did it shake Bucky's confidence that Mackenzie had seen him and failed to recognize the man as his old cook. The fellow was thoroughly disguised, but the camera had happened to catch that curious furtive glance of his. But for that O'Connor would never have known the two to be the same.

Bucky was at the telephone half an hour. In the middle of the next afternoon his reward came in the form of a Western Union billet. It read:

“Eastern man says you don't want what is salable here.”

The lieutenant cut out every other word and garnered the wheat of the message:

“Man you want is here.”

The telegram was marked from Epitaph, and for that town the ranger and the sheriff entrained immediately.

Bucky's eye searched in vain the platform of the Epitaph depot for Malloy, of the Rangers, whose wire had brought him here. The cause of the latter's absence was soon made clear to him in a note he found waiting for him at the hotel:

“The old man has just sent me out on hurry-up orders. Don't know when I'll get back. Suggest you take in the show at the opera house to-night to pass the time.”

It was the last sentence that caught Bucky's attention. Jim Malloy had not written it except for a reason. Wherefore the lieutenant purchased two tickets for the performance far back in the house. From the local newspaper he gathered that the showman was henceforth to be a resident of Epitaph. Mr. Jay Hardman, or Signor Raffaello Cavellado, as he was known the world over by countless thousands whom he had entertained, had purchased a corral and livery stable at the corner of Main and Boothill Streets and solicited the patronage of the citizens of Hualpai County. That was the purport of the announcement which Bucky ringed with a pencil and handed to his friend.

That evening Signor Raffaello Cavellado made a great hit with his audience. He swaggered through his act magnificently, and held his spectators breathless. Bucky took care to see that a post and the sheriff's big body obscured him from view during the performance.

After it was over O'Connor and the sheriff returned to the hotel, where also Hardman was for the present staying, and sent word up to his room that one of the audience who had admired very much the artistic performance would like the pleasure of drinking a glass of wine with Signor Cavellado if the latter would favor him with his company in room seven. The Signor was graciously pleased to accept, and followed his message of acceptance in person a few minutes later.

Bucky remained quietly in the corner of the room back of the door until the showman had entered, and while the latter was meeting Collins he silently locked the door and pocketed the key.

The sheriff acknowledged Hardman's condescension brusquely and without shaking hands. “Glad to meet you, seh. But you're mistaken in one thing. I'm not your host. This gentleman behind you is.”

The man turned and saw Bucky, who was standing with his back against the door, a bland smile on his face.

“Yes, seh. I'm your host to-night. Sheriff Collins, hyer, is another guest. I'm glad to have the pleasure of entertaining you, Signor Raffaello Cavellado,” Bucky assured him, in his slow, gentle drawl, without reassuring him at all.

For the fellow was plainly disconcerted at recognition of his host. He turned with a show of firmness to Collins. “If you're a sheriff, I demand to have that door opened at once,” he blustered.

Val put his hands in his pockets and tipped back his chair. “I ain't sheriff of Hualpai County. My jurisdiction don't extend here,” he said calmly.

“I'm an unarmed man,” pleaded Cavellado.

“Come to think of it, so am I.”

“I reckon I'm holding all the aces, Signor Cavellado,” explained the ranger affably. “Or do you prefer in private life to be addressed as Hardman—or, say, Anderson?”

The showman moistened his lips and offered his tormentor a blanched face.

“Anderson—a good plain name. I wonder, now, why you changed it?” Bucky's innocent eyes questioned him blandly as he drew from his pocket a little box and tossed it on the table. “Open that box for me, Mr. Anderson. Who knows? It might explain a heap of things to us.”

With trembling fingers the big coward fumbled at the string. With all his fluent will he longed to resist, but the compelling eyes that met his so steadily were not to be resisted. Slowly he unwrapped the paper and took the lid from the little box, inside of which was coiled up a thin gold chain with locket pendant.

“Be seated,” ordered Bucky sternly, and after the man had found a chair the ranger sat down opposite him.

From its holster he drew a revolver and from a pocket his watch. He laid them on the table side by side and looked across at the white-lipped trembler whom he faced.

“We had better understand each other, Mr. Anderson. I've come here to get from you the story of that chain, so far as you know it. If you don't care to tell it I shall have to mess this floor up with your remains. Get one proposition into your cocoanut right now. You don't get out of this room alive with your secret. It's up to you to choose.”

Quite without dramatics, as placidly as if he were discussing railroad rebates, the ranger delivered his ultimatum. It seemed plain that he considered the issue no responsibility of his.

Anderson stared at him in silent horror, moistening his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. Once his gaze shifted to the sheriff but found small comfort there. Collins had picked up a newspaper and was absorbed in it.

“Are you going to let him kill me?” the man asked him hoarsely.

He looked up from his newspaper in mild protest at such unreason. “Me? I ain't sittin' in this game. Seems like I mentioned that already.”

“Better not waste your time, signor, on side issues,” advised the man behind the gun. “For I plumb forgot to tell you I'm allowing only three minutes to begin your story, half of which three has already slipped away to yesterday's seven thousand years. Without wantin' to hurry you, I suggest the wisdom of a prompt decision.”

“Would he do it?” gasped the victim,