The Trail Horde by Charles Alden Seltzer (i read book .TXT) 📖

Slade, and the others deserved at his hands. He took up the pistols, nestling their sinister shapes in his palms, while his blood rioted with the terrible lust that now seized him—the old urge to do violence, the primal instinct to slay, to which he had yielded when Shorty told him of the things Blondy Antrim had done.

Another minute passed while he fondled the weapons. Twice he moved as though to buckle the cartridge belt around his waist—shoving aside the black coat he wore, which would have hidden them. But each time he changed his mind.

He knew that if he wore them he would use them. The driving intensity of his desire to kill Warden, Singleton, and Slade would overwhelm him if he should find they had harmed Ruth. The deadly passion that held him in a mighty clutch would take no account of his position, of his duty to the state, or of the oath he had taken to obey and administer the laws.

While he silently fought the lust that filled his heart the secretary came in. He started and then stood rigid, watching Lawler, seeming to divine something of the struggle that was going on before his eyes. He saw how Lawler's muscles had tensed, how his chin had gone forward with a vicious thrust—noted the awful indecision that had seized the man. As the secretary watched, he realized that Lawler was on the verge of surrendering to the passions he was fighting—for Lawler had again taken up the cartridge belt and was opening his coat to buckle the belt around him.

"Governor."

It was the secretary's voice. It was low, conveying the respect that the man always used in addressing Lawler. But the sound startled Lawler like the explosion of a bomb in the room. He flashed around, saw the secretary—looked steadily at him for one instant, and then dropped the belt to the desk, tossed the pistols into the drawer and smiled mirthlessly.

"Governor," said the secretary; "your train is ready."

The secretary stood within three yards of Lawler, and before he could turn to go out, Lawler had reached him. He seized both the man's hands, gripped them tightly, and said, hoarsely:

"Thank you, Williams."

Then he released the secretary's hands and plunged out through the door, while the secretary, smiling wisely, walked to the desk and picking up the cartridge belt, dropped it into the drawer with the pistols.

CHAPTER XLI THE CLEAN-UP

The Wolf Saloon was in a big frame building that stood at a little distance from the back of the street, with a wide, open space on each side of it. Lights were flickering from some of the upstairs windows of the building when Shorty and the other Circle L men reached town. Shorty and his men had ridden hard, and they had seen a horse and rider halt in front of the building while they were yet a mile or so out on the plains. And when Shorty's horse struck the edge of town Shorty headed him straight for the Wolf, veering when he reached it and passing to the open space from which ran an outside stairway. The other men followed Shorty's example, and they were close at his heels when he slipped off his horse and ran around to the front of the Wolf.

Warden had come out shortly before; he was now in his office farther down the street, congratulating himself upon the outcome of the incident in the saloon. He had struck a damaging blow at Lawler. At a stroke he was evening his score with the latter.

Several other men had emerged from the saloon. When Shorty reached the front door four men were just emerging, carrying another. Suspicious, alert, Shorty halted the men and peered closely at the face of the man they were carrying.

"It's Joe Hamlin!" he said as he recognized the other's face.

Shorty's eyes were glowing with rage and suspicion.

"What's happened?" he demanded of one of the men.

"Rukus," shortly replied one. "Hamlin, here, tried to draw on Slade, an' Slade——"

"Slade!"

Shorty almost screamed the words. He straightened, his face grew convulsed. Pausing on the verge of violent action, he heard Hamlin's voice:

"Shorty!"

Shorty leaned over. Straining, his muscles working, his eyes blazing, Shorty heard low words issuing from Hamlin's lips:

"Slade done it, Shorty. An' he's got Ruth—took her upstairs. Shorty—save her—for God's sake!"

Shorty straightened. "Take this man to the doctor—he's hit bad!" The words were flung at the four men; and Shorty was on the move before he finished.

Blackburn and the others were close behind him when he burst into the front door of the saloon.

The saloon occupied the entire lower floor. A bar ran the length of the room from front to rear. In the center of the room was a roulette wheel; near it was a faro table; and scattered in various places were other tables. Some oil-lamps in clusters provided light for the card and gambling tables; and behind the bar were several bracket lamps.

There were perhaps a score of men in the room when Shorty and the Circle L men burst in. Shorty had come to a halt in the glare of one of the big clusters of lights, and his friends had halted near him.

The giant made a picture that brought an awed hush over the place. He stood in the glaring light, a gun in each hand, the muscles of his face and neck standing out like whipcords; his legs a-sprawl, his eyes blazing with awful rage as they roved around the room, scanning the faces of every man there. The other Circle L men had drawn their weapons, too. But Shorty dominated. It was upon him that all eyes turned; it was upon his crimson, rage-lined face that every man looked. He was a figure of gigantic proportions—a mighty man in the grip of the blood-lust.

"You guys stand. Every damned one of you! Don't move a finger or bat an eyelash! I've come a-killin'!" he said in a low, tense voice, the words coming with a snap, jerkily, like the separate and distinct lashes of a whip.

Not a man in the room moved, nor did their fascinated eyes waver for an instant from Shorty's face.

"Where's Slade?"

He shot the words at them. He saw their eyes waver for an instant from his and they looked toward the stairs in the rear—the stairs that Ruth Hamlin had seen when for an instant after throwing the door of the room open she had glanced down to see the room full of men, all looking at her.

The concentrated gazing of the men at the stairs told Shorty what he wanted to know. He spoke to Blackburn, throwing the words back over his shoulder:

"Hold 'em right where they are—damn 'em!"

Then with a few gigantic bounds he was at the foot of the stairs. In a few more he had gained the top, where he pressed his huge shoulder against the door. It gave a little—enough to further enrage the giant. He drew back a little and literally hurled himself against it. It burst open, Shorty keeping his feet as the wreck fell away from him. And he saw Slade, with a hand over Ruth's mouth, standing near the foot of the bed.

Evidently Slade had been about to release Ruth when he heard the door crashing behind him; for at the instant Shorty emerged from the wreck he saw that the girl's body was already falling—toward the bed—as Slade drew away from her and reached for his guns.

They came out—both of them—streaking fire and smoke. But they never came to the deadly level to which Slade sought to throw them; for Shorty's guns were crashing at Slade's first movement, and the bullets from the outlaw's weapons thudded into the board floor, harmlessly, and Slade lurched forward—almost to Shorty's side—his guns loosening in his hands and falling, one after the other, to the floor. He grinned, with hideous satire, into Shorty's face as he tried, vainly, to steady himself.

"Warden—the damned skunk—said Lawler would come—first!" he said, with horrible pauses. He lurched again, still grinning satirically; and slumped to the floor, where he turned slowly over on his back and lay still.

Shorty glanced at Ruth, who was huddled on the bed; then he wheeled, and leaped for the stairs.

Before he reached the bottom, Ruth sat up and stared dazedly about. She had heard the crashing of the pistols, though the reports had seemed to come from a great distance—faintly, dully. But when she reeled to her feet and saw Slade lying on the floor, his upturned face ghastly in the feeble light from the oil-lamp, she knew that someone had saved her, and she yielded, momentarily, to a great joy that weakened her so that she had to sit on the edge of the bed to steady herself.

It was not for long; and presently she got up and swayed to the door at the top of the stairs, holding onto the jamb while she looked downward. When her eyes grew accustomed to the light she paled.

In the big room were many men. She saw Shorty standing among them—she recognized them as Circle L cowboys. Shorty's guns were out; in fact the men in the group near Shorty seemed to bristle with weapons.

At the rear of the room was another group of men. They stood motionless, silent, and had no weapons in their hands. But some of them were crouching, their faces grim and set.

And then Ruth heard Shorty's voice—hoarse, raucous with passion:

"You guys that don't belong to Slade's gang, get out! Fan it! You Slade men stand! I know every damned one of you!"

There was a short silence, during which several men slipped away from the group at the rear of the room and bolted for the rear door. And then, suddenly, as Shorty muttered words that Ruth did not hear, both groups of men leaped into action.

Ruth saw the men in the group at the rear reach, concertedly, for their weapons; she saw smoke streaks stabbing the heavy atmosphere of the big room; heard the roar and crash of pistols; saw men falling, to land in grotesque positions; saw Shorty, huge and terrible amid the billowing smoke, shoot a man who tried to leap over the bar, so that he fell across it limply, as though sleeping. She observed another man—one of Slade's—dodge behind a card table, rest his pistol for an instant on its top, and shoot at Shorty. She saw Shorty snap a shot at the man, saw the man's head wobble as he sank behind the table. And then she was suddenly aware that it was ended. A ghastly silence fell. Through the heavy smoke she saw Shorty, standing where he had stood all along—near the cluster of lights just inside the front door. It seemed to her that the room was full of motionless figures of men, strewing the floor.

She was sick and weak, but she knew she must get out into the air or she would faint; and so she began to descend the stairs, holding to the slender railing for support.

She got down without anyone seeing her. No one seemed to pay any attention to her. As she reached a side door—opening into the space from which the outside stairs ran—she looked back, to see Shorty and a number of Circle L men clustered around Blackburn—who was sitting in a chair, looking very white.

She got out into the open and ran toward the street, hardly knowing what she intended to do. Whatever happened, she did not want to stay longer in the Wolf. She had a feeling that if she could find Moreton she would be safe until Shorty and the Circle L men completed the grim work upon which they were engaged. For she knew that the Circle L men had sworn to square their account with the outlaws—and, knowing the circumstances of the fight on the plains the previous spring, she could not blame them for what they had done.

And yet she wanted