Florence Kelly - The Delafield Affair

Curtis’s face paled, even under its ruddy tan, and his eyes blazed. With head up he strode forward. “Jenkins,” he said, without raising his voice, although it shook with a warning tremor, “I advise you to be careful. You may have your opinion about me, as I have mine about you – and you know what that is. But don’t you say that again, nor anything else of the sort!”

Jenkins turned toward him with an ugly sneer. Recollection of former indignities at Conrad’s tongue and hands blazed up in his heart and carried him farther than he had meant to go. With an oath and a vile name he flung his glass in Conrad’s face. In an instant the young man’s arms were around his body. The others crowded in and tried to stop the quarrel.

“Let us alone!” shouted Curtis, pushing his way toward the back room. “Wilder, take his gun, will you? Get mine out of my pocket, too. This won’t be a gun play.”

Tillinghurst took Conrad’s pistol, and Wilder succeeded in getting Jenkins’s revolver, at the cost of a kick on the shin, which he repaid in kind. With Jenkins almost helpless in his grasp, Curtis struggled into the rear room. The others were all crowding after him. He turned back a face still pale and set with anger, although a twinkle of amusement was creeping into his eyes.

“Dan,” he called, “shut that door and keep out the crowd!”

Instantly there were cries of disapproval.

“Fair play!” “You’re bigger than him!” “We want to see it’s on the square!”

Curtis scowled. “If any of you think it won’t be on the square, just wait for me till I get through with him,” he shouted.

The Sheriff slammed the door, and set his bulk against it, saying with smiling cheerfulness: “Well, gentlemen, I reckon Mr. Jenkins won’t get any more than is comin’ to him, and as Sheriff I call on all of you to keep the peace and not interfere.”

Alone in the back room with his prisoner, Conrad dropped into a chair, dragged the other over his knees, face downward, then threw out one sinewy leg and caught under it Jenkins’s two unruly limbs. Still keeping a firm grip with his left arm, he raised his right hand.

“Now,” he said grimly, “you’re going to get the sort of spanking your mother didn’t give you enough of.”

One after another the resounding smacks came down, while Jenkins, his strength spent in futile struggle, could do nothing but writhe helplessly under the smarting blows. The sound of them penetrated to the front room. As the men there realized what was happening they broke into laughter so uproarious that it smote upon Jenkins’s ears and forced a hysterical shriek from between his gritted teeth. In Conrad’s heart it inspired compassion and he desisted.

“I guess that’ll do for this time,” he said, releasing his hold and standing the culprit on his feet. “I don’t want to have to hurt you, but let me tell you, you damned skunk,” and he seized Jenkins’s shoulders and gave him a vigorous shake, “if you ever dare talk about me again in that way, or tell another human being what you told me about Bancroft, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

With a parting shake he let Jenkins fall back into the chair, sobbing aloud. Then he stalked to the door, not even doing his enemy the slight honor of going out backward.

As the shout which greeted Conrad’s entrance died away the Sheriff called out, “Now, gentlemen, you must all have one with me,” and every one lined up at the bar. A rollicking din of chaff and laughter filled the room, and no one except Little Jack Wilder noticed the entrance of a Mexican at the street door. He heard the step, turned quickly, and recognized the man who had told Tillinghurst that he was not Liberato Herrara. Glancing along the line of backs at the bar, the Mexican singled out Conrad and touched his arm.

“I beg your pardon, señor, but did you send some one to ride your mare?”

“To ride my mare? No; what do you mean?”

Before he could answer Wilder sprang forward demanding, “Is she gone?” and Conrad started for the door.

“A man has just ridden her away on the run,” the Mexican said excitedly, and every one in the room rushed for the street.

“She’s gone!” shouted Conrad.

“Did you see him? What was he like?” demanded the Sheriff.

“A pock-marked greaser with a bad eye?” yelled Wilder, towering threateningly above the bearer of the news.

Gonzalez threw back his head, folded his arms across his breast, and answered deliberately, “He was a Mexican, señor, he was pock-marked, and he was blind in one eye.”

“Melgares! He’s done it at last! Hooray!” shouted Wilder.

Far down the street, beyond the last cottonwood, against the gray, sun-flooded road, they could see a dark object, distorted by the heat haze, but still showing the form of a man on a galloping horse.

Tillinghurst’s smile became an eager grin as he started up the street on a run. “Everybody come that wants to,” he called over his shoulder. Wilder and Conrad were already half a block ahead of him, and several others quickly followed.

When they presently came pelting back, their horses at top speed, a crowd of men still stood on the sidewalk, where the Blue Front made a splash of brilliant color against the sombre grays and browns of the surrounding adobes. Wilder’s tall, thin figure was in the lead, bending forward in the saddle like a sapling in a gale, the wide, limp brim of his sombrero flapping in the wind. Conrad and Tillinghurst were pressing him close, and half a dozen others were pounding along behind these three, while a stout man, who rode awkwardly, trailed along in the rear.

The crowd at the Blue Front shouted encouragingly as they clattered past, and made bets on the chances of catching the fugitive. The Mexican, Gonzalez, watched Conrad closely as he sped by, and said carelessly to the man beside him, “Señor Conrad is a good rider, the best of them all. I hope he will get back his fine mare.”

The horsemen swept down the street past the last straggling houses, and out into the open plain. Fleeing down the road, perhaps two miles ahead of them, galloped the Mexican. Tillinghurst measured the distance with a careful eye, and said to Conrad, “He’s our meat. We can get him easy.” He glanced backward, chuckled, then turned in his saddle, and called loudly, “Come along there, Pendy! Don’t get discouraged!”

Another of the party turned his head and yelled, “You’re all right, Pendy! You’ll get there before Dan does!”

The stout man who brought up the rear had made sure of his gray slouch hat by tying it on with a red bandanna handkerchief. He was gripping his bridle with both hands and bouncing in his saddle like a bag of meal. “Don’t you worry about me!” he yelled back good-naturedly; “you can’t lose me if you try.”

“Who is he?” asked Curtis.

“Pendy? Oh, he’s a tenderfoot. Blew in from the East two or three weeks ago. Somethin’ wrong with his bellows – or likely to be, though you-all wouldn’t think it, considerin’ his fat. He’s grit clear through, though! Just look at the way he rides!”

Conrad glanced back, laughed, and replied, “Oh, it’ll be good for his liver!” Then he went on seriously, “Dan, do you think there’s any truth in the story that this man Melgares began horse-stealing because Dell Baxter did him out of his ranch?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Baxter got his ranch all right, but the greaser didn’t have to go to stealin’ horses on that account. Chickens are safer; and chilis don’t even squawk. I reckon likely he steals horses because he’d ruther.”

“Well, anyway, Dan, all I want out of this is to get Brown Betty back. I shall not make any complaint against him. So, if he gives up the mare, I’d rather you let him go.”