Hashknife and the Fantom Riders Read online

  Hashknife nodded and held out his hand to Lanpher, just as the front door opened and in came two richly dressed women. One of them was a slender, imperious-looking young lady, and the other a middle-aged woman, rather fleshily built.

  Carsten spoke cordially to both of them, and Lanpher smilingly said—

  “Mrs. and Miss Lanpher, I want you to meet Mr. Hartley and Mr. Stevens.

  “And we’re sure pleased t’ meetcha,” grinned Hashknife, shaking hands with both of them, although it was obvious that neither of the ladies cared for the handshaking.

  “We’re just makin’ a short call,” explained Hashknife. “Thought we’d kinda wade out to see Lanpher before leavin’ town.”

  No one seemed inclined to pick up the conversation; so Hashknife said—

  “We’re sure pleased t’ meetcha, and if yuh ever drift over into our country, drop in and see us.”

  The ladies murmured something conventional, but Carsten elevated his eyebrows a trifle, as he said—

  “Just where is your country, Hartley?”

  “Well,” grinned Hashknife, “yuh might say it was anywhere in the Western side of the U. S. A.”

  “Sort of drifters, eh?”

  “Nope.”

  Hashknife shook his head.

  “We travel under our own power, Carsten. Good night, folks.”

  They went out of the front door and into the fog and rain. The fog-horns were sending out their eerie wailings down on the harbor, and the street lights gleamed dully at close quarters or faded to mere halo-like spots at a few yards distant.

  The two cowboys halted on the sidewalk and tamed their backs to the drifting elements.

  “What do yuh make of it, Hashknife?” asked Sleepy, his teeth chattering in spite of himself.

  “I dunno what to make of it, Sleepy; but we’ve already made two thousand dollars out of it. Here comes one of them rattlety-bump cars, goin’ downtown. Do yuh think yuh can ride her on the curves?”

  “I’ll ride inside and lock m’ heels,” declared Sleepy. “My gosh, ain’t Miss Lanpher a dinger. Whooee! The queen of Sheber never had anythin’ on her—except a snake.”

  CHAPTER II

  IT WAS very hot in the town of Wolf Wells, a huddle of unpainted buildings, strung more or less along a crooked, dusty street. Wolf Wells was strictly a cattle town, where no one seemed inflicted with too much morals, and its temperature was very hot in Summer and below zero in Winter, which probably accounted for the weather-beaten appearance of the whole place.

  A branch railroad wound its crooked way through the Ghost Hills to Wolf Wells, but the train service seemed in the hands of the train crews, rather than in any semblance of a schedule. Wolf Wells was the county-seat.

  Just now the town was fairly well-filled with people. It was Saturday, which accounted for some of the activity, but the majority of the people were interested in the outcome of Pinto Cassidy’s trial for murder.

  The jury, a bunch of hard-bitten cattlemen, were still deliberating, after thirty hours of being locked up in a hot jury-room. Near one of the hitch-racks stood Jim Trainor, half-owner of the Circle Cross outfit, talking to “Fat” Fleager, the sheriff.

  Trainor was a big man, broad of shoulder and with a face that was as inflexible as a piece of granite. His eyes were gray, like the gray of tempered steel, and his jaw jutted belligerently, as he bit reflectively at his lower lip.

  The sheriff was built after the manner of a bed-slat, and from the sadness of his thin face, the bloodhound-like eyes, with their heavy pouches, one might well expect him to be the proprietor of a non-paying undertaking establishment.

  Both men were dressed in range clothes, and Fat Fleager seemed to be continually in danger of losing his belt, which hung draped around his narrow hips. The waistband of his overalls Seemed to cause him much concern also, and the arm-holes of his vest continually crawled out over the paints of his narrow shoulders.

  They were both looking at a young man, dressed in cowboy garb, who crossed the street past them and went into a saloon. He was a slender young man, unshaven, unhandsome, but there was a devil-may-care slouch to his walk and to the angle of his sombrero. He did not look at Trainor and the sheriff.

  “There’s a damn fool that’s breedin’ a scab for himself,” said Trainor, as the young man passed into the saloon.

  “Yeah.” The sheriff nodded wearily. “I s’pose.”

  “No brains. Old man’s got lots of money. Damn kid could pick out a society girl for a wife, but he ain’t got no brains.”

  “Lanpher got lots of money?” Indifferently.

  “Ought to have.”

  “Rich kid come to cowland and learned papa’s business, eh?” The sheriff actually smiled at his own humor.

  “Lanpher ought to come out here and kick the kid back to Frisco,” growled Trainor.

  “Uh-huh,” dubiously. “Mebbe it wouldn’t be safe. The kid got drunk last night in the Lily of the Valley saloon, and he backed ag’in’ the bar, with a gun in his hand, and recited some startlin’ pedigrees. But nobody called him.”

  “Felt sorry for him, I suppose.”

  “Thasso?”

  The sheriff squinted at Trainor.

  “That kid took seven dollars away from Lonesome Hobbs day before yesterday, shootin’ with a six-gun. I throwed the tin-cans for ’em m’self. Hobbs ain’t so danged amachoor, y’betcha.”

  “Well, let him go ahead.” Trainor shrugged his shoulders, as if to dismiss the subject.

  “Oh, he’ll go too far, that’s a cinch,” said the sheriff. “Kids always does. I wish that danged jury would make up their minds pretty soon. There’s Cassidy’s girl over in front of the hardware store now. I betcha she’s lookin’ for Ben Lanpher.”

  Trainor turned and squinted closely at her. She was about average height, with a thin oval face, as brown as her maternal ancestors, but showing little of the aboriginal blood. Her hair was dark and worn in two heavy braids, but her eyes were blue.

  Her calico dress was well-made, even though a trifle gaudy in color, and she walked with the easy grace of a jungle-bred animal.

  “Irish and Injun,” muttered Trainor. “Hell, what a combination! A blue-eyed Injun. If she wanted a weapon and you showed her a brick-bat and a scalpin’ knife, which would she take?”

  “That’s a question,” grinned the sheriff. “But she’s a damn pretty girl, jist the same, Trainor.”

  “Yes, she’s damn pretty.”

  “And she’ll make a good wife for some man.”

  “Hm-m-m,” mused Trainor. “I reckon she will.”

  Two cowboys were crossing the street and Trainor turned from looking at Lorna Cassidy to give them a sharp glance.

  “Who are those fellers, Fleager?” he asked.

  “One feller—the tall one—is named Hartley. I talked with him this mornin’ at the feed corral. They rode in last night from the Enemas country.”

  “Goin’ to stay here?”

  “Lookin’ for jobs, I reckon. The tall feller is a nice spoken sort of a jigger, but he made me feel like he was laughin’ at me all the time. There ain’t nothin’ soft and tender about either of ’em.”

  “What did he say that made yuh feel he was laughin’ at yuh?”

  “Oh-h-h, well—nothin’ much. He was tellin’ about a feller that he knew who was so durned thin that his clothes wouldn’t stay on him, and so he wore his union-suit on the outside. He said it sure looked awful, but gave him the full use of his two bands.”

  The sheriff hitched up his pants and belt and spat reflectively, while a grin flashed across Trainor’s thin lips.

  “Anyway,” declared the sheriff, “I ain’t goin’ to try it. Mebbe we better go over and see if there’s any news from the jury.”

  As they started across the street, Hashknife and Sleepy came out of the saloon and caught up with them. Hashknife spoke to the sheriff.

  “You ain’t puttin’ on this kind of weather for our benefit, are yuh, pardner?”


  “This ain’t so hot,” said the sheriff.

  “No, it ain’t exactly hot. I knowed a man once that was so danged thin that—”

  “Your name’s Hartley, ain’t it?” interrupted the sheriff. “Shake hands with Mr. Trainor, of the Circle Cross.”

  Hashknife shook hands with Trainor and introduced Sleepy to both men.

  “You two fellers just driftin’ through?” queried Trainor casually.

  Hashknife grinned and shook his head.

  “Feller asked the same thing about a week ago. No-o-o, I wouldn’t say that we’re exactly driftin’, Mr. Trainor.”

  “We’re kinda lookin’ for jobs,” declared Sleepy. “We ain’t askin’ for work—for jobs.”

  Trainor laughed.

  “I’m full-handed right now, or will be, as soon as that jury finds out what they’re goin’ to do. My foreman is on the jury, yuh see.”

  “Seems like they was havin’ trouble decidin’ the case, accordin’ to what I can hear,” observed Hashknife. “Old man Cassidy ain’t very pop’lar, is he?”

  “Not very,” admitted Trainor. “I reckon they’ll cinch him.”

  The sheriff shook his head and shifted his chew.

  “Nossir, I don’t think so. ’F they was goin’ to cinch him they’d ’a’ done it hours ago. Cow-juries don’t work that-away.”

  “They sure don’t,” grinned Hashknife. “They’re just as liable to bring in a verdict of arson ag’in’ the judge as to settle the guilt or innocence of old man Cassidy.”

  “And still they’re twelve men, good and true,” grunted Trainor.

  “Good and true don’t mean that they’ve got any brains.”

  “Here comes ‘Lonesome’ Hobbs,” said the sheriff, pointing down the street toward a short, fat, bow-legged individual, who was coming toward them as fast as his feet would carry him. As he drew near he removed his hat, exposing an almost totally bald head, which made him look like a very fat and very much overheated baby.

  “Juj-jury’s made up their dud-danged minds,” he panted hoarsely. “Do yuh know where the juj-judge is, Fat?”

  “He’s over in the Lily of the Valley, I reckon. Better go over and roust him out, Lonesome.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll git ’m.”

  Lonesome bow-legged his way across the street, fanning himself with his hat, while Hashknife and Sleepy followed Trainor and the sheriff down to the dance-hall, which was used as a courtroom.

  Lonesome’s search for the judge had spread the news that the jury had reached a decision, and the court filled rapidly. Hashknife and Sleepy secured seats near the front of the room.

  Seated just beyond them was Lorna Cassidy, and in a few minutes she was joined by a stout, white-haired man, carrying a mass of legal-looking papers.

  “That’s Mitchell, the Frisco lawyer,” whispered a man near Hashknife. “I heard that young Lanpher hired him to defend old man Cassidy. I betcha it cost him some money.”

  A few minutes later the sheriff came in from the rear of the hall, and with him was Pinto Cassidy, a little, old, wizened character. Cassidy was typically Irish of face, and his steady glance at the audience seemed to carry a fighting challenge to any or all of them.

  But his seamed old face softened as he looked at his daughter, and he smiled softly, patting her on the shoulder. They talked together for a moment and then Ben Lanpher came swaggering up the aisle to sit down beside her. He was flushed with drink, arrogant with the feeling that every one was against him, and looked defiantly at every one in the room.

  The judge came in and stood beside his desk. He was an old man, white of hair, very dignified. For a moment he looked about the room and rapped sharply on his desk. The buzz of conversation ceased.

  “Just to say to you,” said the judge clearly, “that the court will brook no demonstration whatever. You will curb your feelings while within these walls.”

  He turned and sat down as the jury filed in. They were a tired-looking crew of men, stolid, some of them seemingly half-angry. They sat down in the jury-box and looked expectantly at the judge, who said—

  “Gentlemen, have you reached a decision?”

  A big, raw-boned cowman, the foreman of the jury, got to his feet slowly and faced the judge.

  “We have not,” he replied evenly, “and we can’t. There’s a damn fool among us that—” He looked meaningly at a hard-faced, squint-eyed cowboy on the end of the row—“that ain’t got enough brains to grease a needle with. He’s held us up for—well, all the time we’ve been in then, and we ask that you dismiss us.”

  The squint-eyed cowboy continued to study the opposite wall, paying no attention to the foreman’s words. The judge cleared his throat raspingly.

  “Then you find it impossible to reach a verdict?”

  “Yeah, unless we want to foller that half-witted gopher’s ideas and hang old man Cassidy, judge. If it wasn’t murder to kill a feller like him, he’d ’a’ been dead eleven times right now.”

  “And that’s no damn lie,” echoed a disgruntled member.

  The judge sighed. He had been many years in cow-land and knew there would be no use to reprimand these men for such language in the court-room. They were all on the ragged edge, and the only thing he could do would be to dismiss them, which he did; thanking them for their efforts.

  Ben Lanpher got to his feet and spoke directly to the judge:

  “What about Cassidy? Does he get off now?”

  The judge shook his head.

  “No, I am sorry to say that he will have to stand trial before another jury.”

  “There’s a hell of a lot of justice in that!” roared Ben angrily. “Eleven of ’em wanted to turn him loose, and just because one man—”

  “Hang on to yourself, Lanpher!” snapped the sheriff, taking him by the arm. “You’re in a courtroom—not a saloon.”

  “That’s right,” gritted the boy. “We might get justice in a saloon, but we can’t get it here.”

  The sheriff turned and looked at the judge questioningly, but the judge shook his head sadly and turned back toward the rear door. The jury had got to their feet, and the sheriff crossed quickly to them and moved in close to the squint-eyed cause of their disgust.

  “I’ll walk out with yuh,” said the sheriff.

  “You better walk with him,” grunted one of the jury meaningly.”

  “Yes, and you better stay with him,” added Ben Lanpher.

  The squint-eyed one glanced at Lanpher and the lines around his mouth twitched sharply, but he did not reply. Hashknife and Sleepy left the courtroom and went back to the street, where men were discussing the trial.

  A cowboy, somewhat the worse for liquor, came up to them.

  “Kinda looks like they was goin’ to have a hard time convictin’ old Cassidy,” he observed. “I’ll betcha that jury had a hell of a time. But you mark my word, this ain’t all settled yet.”

  “No?” queried Hashknife. “How’s that, pardner?”

  “Huh! Lemme tell yuh somethin’. That squint-eyed ‘Smoky’ Cole’ll make ’em pay for what they said about him, y’betcha. He’s plumb salty, he is. I sabe that jasper. Any time yuh think yo’re runnin’ a blazer on that son-of-a-gun, yo’re foolin’ yourself, thasall.”

  “Bad, is he?” queried Hashknife.

  “I’ll nod when yuh ask me that,” grinned the cowboy.

  “You knowed him a long time—before he came here?”

  The cowboy sobered a trifle and hitched up his belt.

  “Tell yuh what I’ll do, I’ll buy a drink.”

  “Who does Smoky Cole work for?” asked Sleepy.

  “He’s foreman of the Circle Cross. Works for Trainor. I’m named Edwards, but folks calls me ‘Bility.’”

  “Is that yore real name, or is it short for Ability.”

  “Hell, I dunno. Yuh see—”

  He grinned and spilled half a sack of tobacco past his cigaret paper.

  “Yuh see, I been with the Flyin’ M f’r a long time, a
nd one time some fellers was thinkin’ about buyin’ old man Shappee out. They was arguin’ about things, when I comes up to see the old man, and one of ’em says—

  “‘Is this one of yore assets?’

  “And old man Shappee says:

  “‘Hell, no! That feller is a liability.’”

  The cowboy laughed and spilled the rest of his tobacco.

  “Do yuh know what it means?” asked Hashknife.

  “Hell, no! And I don’t care. Let’s go. It got me a name.”

  They went into the Lily of the Valley, which was the biggest saloon in the town, and found Trainor at the bar, talking with Lonesome Hobbs. The place was fairly well-filled and the games of chance were being well-patronized.

  They accepted of Bility’s hospitality and while they were drinking, Ben Lanpher came in. He drank two big drinks of raw liquor before he paid any attention to those at the bar. His eyes were red from liquor and his jaw sagged listlessly.

  Hashknife studied him closely and decided that Bennie Lanpher had the makings of a bad-man. He had evidently practised with a six-gun until he had an exalted idea of his own ability, and plenty of liquor had made him careless.

  Ben turned and looked at Hashknife, who smiled softly. Bennie was in no mood to have any one smile at him, and his weak jaw immediately assumed a belligerent angle.

  “See anythin’ funny about me?” he grunted.

  Hashknife ignored the question and turned back facing the bar. But Ben was not to be denied. Something seemed to tell him that this tall cowpuncher had smiled at him—possibly laughed at him.

  He shoved away from the bar and stepped in behind Hashknife.

  “See anythin’ funny about me?” he asked.

  Hashknife turned lazily and looked him straight in the eyes.

  “Yeah, I see a lot of funny things about yuh, young feller. If they wasn’t also awful sad, I’d laugh like—”

  “Is—that—so?” Lanpher spaced his words widely and his right hand eased back toward his holster.

  “In the first place,” continued Hashknife, “yo’re too young to drink so much liquor. First thing yuh know you’ll quit growin’ and always look like a half-baked kid. You ain’t got brain enough to see that yo’re headin’ plumb into trouble—mebbe a rope. Them is some of the reasons why I ain’t laughin’ at yuh.”