Part 20 (1/2)

He sat down on the gra.s.s triumphantly.

It seemed to Bud Larkin as though some gigantic club had descended on the top of his head and numbed all his senses. Careful as he had been, this wily devil had led him into a labyrinthic maze of questions, the end of which was a concealed precipice. And, like one of his own sheep, he had leaped over it at the leader's call!

He looked at the faces of his judges. They were all dark now and perplexed. Even Billy Speaker seemed convinced. Bud admitted to himself that his only chance was to refute Stelton's damaging inference. But how?

The cowmen were beginning to talk in low tones among themselves and there was not much time. Suddenly an idea came. With a difficult effort he controlled his nervous trepidation.

”Men,” he said, ”Stelton did not pursue his questions far enough.”

”What d'yuh mean by that?” asked Bissell, glaring at him savagely.

”I mean that he did not ask me what Caldwell actually did with the money I gave him. He made you believe that Smithy used it for the rustlers with my consent. That is a blamed lie!”

”What did he do with it?” cried Billy Speaker.

”Ask Stelton,” shouted Bud, suddenly leaping out of his chair and pointing an accusing finger at the foreman. ”He seems to know so much about everything, ask him!”

The foreman, dazed by the unexpected attack, turned a surprised and harrowed countenance toward the men as he scrambled to his feet. He cast quick, fearful glances in Larkin's direction, as though attempting to discover how much of certain matters that young man actually knew.

”Ask him!” repeated Bud emphatically. ”There's a fine man to listen to, coming here with a lark.u.m story that he can't follow up.”

”Come on, Stelton, loosen yore jaw,” suggested Billy Speaker. ”What did this here Caldwell do with the money?”

Stelton, his face black with a cloud of rage and disappointment, glared from one to another of the men, who were eagerly awaiting his replies.

Larkin, watching him closely, saw again those quick, furtive flicks of the eye in his direction, and the belief grew upon him that Stelton was suspicious and afraid of something as yet undreamed of by the rest. Larkin determined to remember the fact.

”I don't know what he done with the money,” growled the foreman at last, admitting his defeat.

”Why did you give Caldwell five hundred in the first place, Larkin?” asked Bissell suddenly.

”That is a matter between himself and me only,” answered Bud freezingly, while at the same time he sat in fear and trembling that Stelton would leap before the cowmen at this new cue and retail all the conversation of that night at the corral.

But for some reason the foreman let the opportunity pa.s.s and Bud wondered to himself what this sudden silence might mean.

He knew perfectly well that no gentle motive was responsible for the fellow's att.i.tude, and wrote the occurrence down on the tablets of his memory for further consideration at a later date.

After this there was little left to be done. Stelton's testimony had failed in its chief purpose, to compa.s.s the death of Larkin, but it had not left him clear of the mark of suspicion and he himself had little idea of absolute acquittal. Under the guard of his sharpshooting cow-puncher he was led back to his room in the ranch house to await the final judgment.

In an hour it was delivered to him, and in all the history of the range wars between the sheep and cattle men there is recorded no stranger sentence. In a land where men were either guilty or innocent, and, therefore, dead or alive, it stands alone.

It was decided by the cowmen that, as a warning and example to other sheep owners, Bud Larkin should be tied to a tree and quirted, the maximum of the punishment being set at thirty blows and the sentence to be carried out at dawn.

CHAPTER XV

COWLAND TOPSY-TURVY

To Bud Larkin enough had already happened to make him as philosophical as Socrates. Epictetus remarks that our chief happiness should consist in knowing that we are entirely indifferent to calamity; that disgrace is nothing if our consciences are right and that death, far from being a calamity is, in fact, a release.