with the delay, he was mounted on Glory and galloping toward Flying U coulee before Weary was through uncovering the wound; and that does not mean that Weary was slow.
The rifle cracked again, and a bullet plucked into the sod twenty feet beyond the circle of men and horses. But no one looked up or gave any other sign of realization that they were still the target; they were staring, with that frowning painfully intent look men have at such moments, at a purplish hole not much bigger than if punched by a lead pencil, just under the point of Happy Jack’s shoulder blade; and at the blood oozing sluggishly from it in a tiny stream across the girlishly white flesh and dripping upon Big Medicine’s arm.
“Hadn’t we better get a rig to take him home with?” Irish suggested.
Weary, exploring farther, had just disclosed a ragged wound under the arm where the bullet had passed out; he made no immediate reply.
“Well, he ain’t got it stuck inside of ‘im, anyway,” Big Medicine commented relievedly. “Don’t look to me like it’s so awful bad—went through kinda anglin’, and maybe missed his lungs. I’ve saw men shot up before—”
“Aw—I betche you’d—think it was bad—if you had it—” murmured Happy Jack peevishly, lifting his eyelids heavily for a resentful glance when they moved him a little. But even as Big Medicine grinned joyfully down at him he went off again into mental darkness, and the grin faded into solicitude.
“You’d kick, by golly, if you was goin’ to be hung,” Slim bantered tritely and belatedly, and gulped remorsefully when he saw that he was “joshing” an unconscious man.
“We better get him home. Irish, you—” Weary looked up and discovered that Irish and jack Bates were already headed for home and a conveyance. He gave a sigh of approval and turned his attention toward wiping the sweat and grime from Happy’s face with his handkerchief.
“Somebody else is goin’ to git hit, by golly, if we stay here,” Slim blurted suddenly, when another bullet dug up the dirt in that vicinity.
“That gol-darned fool’ll keep on till he kills somebody. I wisht I had m’ thirty-thirty here—I’d make him wisht his mother was a man, by golly!”
Big Medicine looked toward the coulee rim. “I ain’t got a shell left,” he growled regretfully. “I wisht we’d thought to tell the boys to bring them rifles. Say, Slim, you crawl onto your hoss and go git ‘em. It won’t take more’n a minute. There’ll likely be some shells in the magazines.”
“Go on, Slim,” urged Weary grimly. “We’ve got to do something. They can’t do a thing like this—” he glanced down at Happy Jack— “and get away with it.”
“I got half a box uh shells for my thirty-thirty, I’ll bring that.” Slim turned to go, stopped short and stared at the coulee rim. “By golly, they’re comm’ over here!” he exclaimed.
Big Medicine glanced up, took off his hat, crumpled it for a pillow and eased Happy Jack down upon it. He got up stiffly, wiped his fingers mechanically upon his trouser legs, broke his gun open just to make sure that it was indeed empty, put it back and picked up a handful of rocks.
“Let ‘em come,” he said viciously. “I c’n kill every damn’ one with m’ bare hands!”
Chapter XV. Oleson
“Say, ain’t that Andy and Mig following along behind?” Cal asked after a minute of watching the approach. “Sure, it is. Now what—”
“They’re drivin’ ‘em, by cripes!” Big Medicine, under the stress of the moment, returned to his usual bellowing tone. “Who’s that tall, lanky feller in the lead? I don’t call to mind ever seem him before. Them four herders I’d know a mile off.”
“That?” Weary shaded his eyes with his hat-brim, against the slant rays of the westering sun. “That’s Oleson, Dunk’s partner.”
“His mother’d be a-weepin’,” Big Medicine observed bodefully, “if she knowed what was due to happen to her son right away quick. Must be him that done the shootin’.”
They came on steadily, the four herders and Oleson walking reluctantly ahead, with Andy Green and the Native Son riding relentlessly in the rear, their guns held unwaveringly in a line with the backs of their captives. Andy was carrying a rifle, evidently taken from one of the men—Oleson, they judged for the guilty one. Half the distance was covered when Andy was seen to turn his head and speak briefly with the Native Son, after which he lunged past the captives and galloped up to the waiting group. His quick eye sought first the face of Happy Jack in anxious questioning; then, miserably, he searched the faces of his friends.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed mechanically, dismounted and bent over the figure on the ground. For a long minute he knelt there; he laid his ear close to Happy Jack’s mouth, took off his glove and laid his hand over Happy’s heart; reached up, twitched off his neckerchief, shook out the creases and spread it reverently over Happy Jack’s face. He stood up then and spoke slowly, his eyes fixed upon the stumbling approach of the captives.
“Pink told us Happy had been shot, so we rode around and come up behind ‘em. It was a cinch. And—say, boys, we’ve got the Dots in a pocket. They’ve got to eat outa our hands, now. So don’t think about—our own feelings, or about—” he stopped abruptly and let a downward glance finish the sentence. “We’ve got to keep our own hands clean, and—now don’t let your fingers get the itch, Bud!” This, because of certain manifestations of a murderous intent on the part of Big Medicine.
“Oh, it’s all right to talk, if yuh feel like talking,” Big Medicine retorted savagely. “I don’t.” He made a catlike spring at the foremost man, who happened to be Oleson, and got a merciless grip with his fingers on his throat, snarling like a predatory animal over its kill. From behind, Andy, with Weary to help, pulled him off.
“I didn’t mean to—to kill anybody,” gasped Oleson, pasty white. “I heard a lot of shooting, and so I ran up the hill—and the herders came running toward me, and I thought I was defending my property and men. I had a right to defend—”
“Defend hell!” Big Medicine writhed in the restraining grasp of those who held him. “Look at that there! As good hearted a boy as ever turned a cow! Never harmed a soul in ‘is life. Is all your dirty, stinkin’ sheep, an’ all your lousy herders, worth that boy’s life? Yuh shot ‘im down like a dog—lemme go, boys.” His voice was husky. “Lemme tromp the life outa him.”
“I thought you were killing my men, or I never—I never meant to—to kill—” Oleson, shaking till he could scarcely stand, broke down and wept; wept pitiably, hysterically, as men of a certain fiber will weep when black tragedy confronts them all unawares. He cowered miserably before the Happy Family, his face hidden behind his two hands.
“Boys, I want to say a word or two. Come over here.” Andy’s voice, quiet as ever, contrasted strangely with the man’s sobbing. He led them back a few paces—Weary, Cal, Big Medicine and Slim, and spoke hurriedly. The Native Son eyed them sidelong from his horse, but he was careful to keep Oleson covered with his gun—and the herders too, although they were unarmed. Once or twice he glanced at that long, ungainly figure in the grass with the handkerchief of Andy Green hiding the face except where a corner, fluttering in the faint breeze which came creeping out of the west, lifted now and then and gave a glimpse of sunbrowned throat and a quiet chin and mouth.
“Quit that blubbering, Oleson, and listen here.” Andys voice broke relentlessly upon the other’s woe. “All these boys want to hang yuh without any red tape; far as I’m concerned, I’m dead willing. But we’re going to give yuh a chance. Your partner, as we told yuh coming over, we’ve got the dead immortal cinch on, right now. And—well you can see what you’re up against. But we’ll give yuh a chance. Have you got any family?”
Oleson,