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                            THE HIGH HANDER

                         by WILLIAM O. TURNER

                            ACE BOOKS, INC.
                      1120 Avenue of the Americas
                           New York 36, N.Y.

                            THE HIGH HANDER

                            Copyright 1963,
                          by Ace Books, Inc.

                          All Rights Reserved

                           Printed in U.S.A.

      [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
  evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]




HARD ROCK MAKES HARD MEN


Tesno was a troubleshooter. That's why the railroad construction
company had hired him. His job was to make sure that nobody interfered
with the tunnel that they were digging through that frontier region
mountain. Tesno knew one thing for sure--if they had called him in,
there must have been plenty interference--and the kind that didn't stop
at murder.

Frontier towns and frontier wilderness didn't pay much attention to
city-made laws. Tesno carried his own law with him and he knew he'd
have to make it respected. It was the law of the six-gun and the firm
high hand. Take no guff, keep your powder dry, and don't give an inch.
One moment of uncertainty, and it would mean his end!




CAST OF CHARACTERS


Jack Tesno

Trouble was his business, and he'd never run from it, but a beautiful
woman could mean more trouble than Tesno had ever seen!


Willie Silverknife

A half-breed kid with a stutter, he had everything against him, except
his own personal courage.


Persia Parker

Blonde, beautiful, and a lady too, she could make a man forget
everything else--even danger.


Ben Vickers

He'd staked everything he owned on a single contract, and he was
depending on Tesno to make it good.


Pete Madrid

He was a trained and instinctive killer, who also wore the badge of a
town marshal.


Mr. Jay

He wanted Ben Vickers' contract, and he'd get it--any way he could.




I


Jack Tesno had been riding into the timbered Cascade Mountains since
dawn. Now, consulting a biscuit-thick Raymond watch, he reined off the
writhing new supply road and followed a creek through the pines till
he found a sun-freckled ellipse of grass that would make a suitable
nooning place.

Knowing that his blue roan wouldn't stray from this spot of pasture,
he unsaddled the animal and turned it loose, reins dragging. He dug
cold biscuits and a wedge of cheese from his saddlebags and lunched
stoically; a lean, catlike man with eyes the color of blue agate and
a splash of gray in his black hair that made him look older than his
thirty-two years. He lay on his belly to drink of the flashing mountain
water. Then, impulsively, he peeled off his clothing and plunged into
the stream. He bathed himself, splashing and rolling like a boy, lying
still in the icy current till he began to feel numb. Teeth chattering,
he found a sunny place on the bank and stretched out in faintly warm
grass. After a while he felt a part of something big and good, and the
affairs of man seemed of little consequence.

It didn't really matter much of a hoot, if the railroad got pushed
across these mountains on schedule, he decided. Not when you lay with
the earth against your skin and the sun drying you from a pine-fringed
patch of sky. What mattered was that you made up your mind to see the
job through--to lay your life on the line, if necessary, to do your
part in pushing it through. That was the difference between you and
weaker men.

_When you come right down to it_, he thought, _that's all I get paid
for--making up my mind._

Troublebuster, the contractors called him. The job embraced a score of
delicate and dangerous tasks, but on the whole he thought of himself as
a peace officer without legal status. He found himself forever laying
down the law to tough and often influential men: usually when there was
no law to lay down except what he made up to fit the circumstances. He
had long since ceased to be surprised that he could get away with this.
Yet he knew he could not get away with it forever.

_Making up my mind_, he thought. A strange process. He knew what he
would decide, he guessed, but it took a little time and a little
solitude to do it.

He was on his way to see old Ben Vickers about a job. It was a
top-paying job. That meant it would be a tough one. Yet he didn't need
the money badly. He had stashed away enough for the start in the cattle
business he had always wanted. _I ought to quit_, he thought. _Now,
before I get a bullet in the guts or a pick-point between the shoulder
blades, or maybe just crack under the strain and wind up in the foolish
house...._

The sound of hoofs, muffled on the soft forest floor, brought him to
his feet. He reached for his clothes as a rider wove through the trees
and reined to a halt. The man was young, round-faced, and freckled. He
wore boots, jeans, and a faded checked shirt. He was plainly startled
by Tesno's nudity. He pushed his Stetson to the back of his head to
reveal a shock of dark red hair.

"You t-taking a bath or s-something?"

Tesno picked up the gunbelt that lay on top of his clothes. Feeling
ridiculous, he swung it aside and began to struggle into his underwear.
"What if I am?" he said irritably.

"D-didn't mean to intrude on your p-privacy."

Tesno continued to get dressed. The young man eased down from his
saddle and dropped the reins. He produced a pint flask from a hip
pocket and took a drink. He offered the flask to Tesno, who shook his
head.

"T-too early in the d-day," the young man admitted. "I only take the
stuff account of this d-damn stuttering. Like medicine."

Tesno flicked him with amused appraisal. "It helps?"

"S-some. Only if I get too much, I s-stutter worse than ever. Only I
d-don't give a d-d-damn." He returned the bottle to his pocket and
extended his hand. "Name's William Silverknife. Folks call me Whisky
Willie."

Tesno sat down to pull on his boots. He reached up awkwardly and shook
hands. He said, "I can see why."

"Hell, I t-take it like medicine. I only been what you'd call drunk
once in my life. Stole a loco-m-motive on the Coeur d'Alene spur and
run it plumb off the end of the track."

"Seems like I heard about that. But the way I got the story, it was
some crazy Indian."

"M-me."

"You're Injun?"

"Three-eights."

Tesno studied him closely now, matter-of-factly. Under the freckles,
the kid's skin was maybe a bit darker than you noticed at first,
and the cheekbones in the round and boyish face were maybe a trifle
prominent. But it was the steady little black eyes that confirmed the
touch of the moccasin.

"That's a hell of a percentage," Tesno said.

"Pa was half Yakima. Ma was a q-quarter-breed Cayuse. It figures out."

"Nobody'd know it if you didn't mention it," Tesno said.

"I g-generally mention it. What did you say your name was, mister?"

"Tesno."

"Jack Tesno? Hell, you headed for Tunneltown?"

"This road go any place else?"

"J-just my luck. I heard Ben Vickers is looking for a troublebuster.
I f-figured to hit him for the job. Reckon I wouldn't have a chance
against you."

_No_, Tesno thought, _you wouldn't have a chance. Even if Ben
hadn't already made me an offer, he would never trust a stammering,
whisky-sipping breed kid to tie on a gun and do his tough-work._ But
he found himself clapping Willie on the shoulder as he moved past the
boy to pick up his saddle. He caught the blue roan and stroked its neck
with the saddle blanket.

"I haven't signed on yet," he said.

"Hell, I'll wind up as water boy or some d-damn fool thing," Willie
said. He grinned and added, "As usual."

"Maybe you could charm that town boss-lady into giving you a job. That
Persia Parker they talk about."

Willie blushed at the mere idea. "Ch-charming ain't among my talents.
Not that I wouldn't l-like to. You ever seen her?"

"No, but I'll lay odds she isn't the looker the rumors have her. She's
probably a fat, mannish type or a tired-faced little tart with dollar
signs for eyes."

"You'd lose the bet," Willie said. "I saw her down to Ellensburg. She's
a kn-knockout. And a real lady."

"How do you tell that?"

"Well, she ain't no honky-tonk gal or anything like that. She was
a lady married to Duke Parker, who was a gentleman. He t-took out
townsite papers and built that town up there. Then he got k-killed in
an accident and she's been running things."

"That's about the way I heard it, too," Tesno said. "But I knew Duke
Parker at Sandpoint, before he got married. He might have been a
gentleman by education, but he was about as slippery a cuss as I ever
met."

"That don't make her a non-lady," Willie persisted. "Wh-what k-kind of
a job you think she might give me?"

Tesno saddled up, and they rode together the rest of the day, following
the raw new road that looped and plodded through rock and timber to the
very backbone of the range. They passed a slashers' ragcamp, a supply
train of a dozen heavy wagons, a stagecoach stalled with a broken wheel
and loaded with laborers. With the sun haloing snow-veined peaks ahead
and the chill of an early-May twilight lurking in the shadows of the
pines, they topped a writhing, ragged ridge and looked down on the
place called Tunneltown.

It lay in a stump-studded gulch, a double row of log buildings neatly
toeing boardwalks along a wide, rut-scribbled street. Tesno whistled
through his teeth. He hadn't expected a solid-looking town here
eighty-five miles ahead of track--though the why of it was plain enough
when a man stopped to think. The workmen here had a tunnel to ream
through the rock of Runaway Mountain, two miles of it. They would be
here two years, more or less. For that long, Tunneltown was assured of
a population with money to spend. And it was assured of a steady stream
of transient spenders--freighters, engineers, inspectors, salesmen.

The horses had fallen into an eager trot on the down-grade, sensing
food and rest ahead; now they slowed to a walk in the heavy mud of the
short, broad street. Tesno made out another cluster of buildings now,
six or eight large ones among the pines on the far slope of the gulch.
That would be Ben Vickers' camp, he concluded. He reined toward a
hitchrail in front of a long, false-fronted building from which floated
the tinny notes of a piano. Above the doorway a sign bore the words
PINK LADY, painted in red letters against a black background.

"I'll buy a drink," he said to Willie.

"N-no, thanks," Willie said. "D-drinking for pleasure don't agree with
me." He nodded toward a livery barn at the head of the street. "You
want me to s-stable your horse for you? He'll get better care there
than in a construction camp corral."

Tesno dismounted and handed him the reins. "Buy him a quarter's worth
of oats. See you around."

He pushed through the batwing doors into the saloon. Men near the end
of the long bar turned to look him over, their eyes darting from his
face to the Colt on his hip and back again. Gambling tables, mostly
faro layouts, were scattered about the large, smoke-layered room. Tesno
moved along the bar to a place near the second of two bartenders, who
started toward him, then stopped to stare. He was a plump, red-faced
man with a white scar on one cheek. He spoke one word, making a
question of it.

"You?"

"Howdy, Pinky," Tesno said tonelessly.

"I'll serve you liquor like anybody else," Pinky Bronklin said. "I
don't have to say howdy to you."

"Whisky," Tesno said.

Pinky set a bottle and a glass on the bar. His bloodshot little eyes
combed Tesno with a look of pure malice.

"This your place?" Tesno asked.

Pinky nodded. "I own a share of it."

"Quite a come-up from the tent saloon you had over in the basin."

Pinky laid a hand on the bar, a hand that was missing the three fingers
between the little one and the thumb. The bloodshot eyes were fixed on
Tesno's face. "You'd like to bust me down to nothin' again, wouldn't
you, Mr. Tesno?"

"Depends," Tesno said.

"You wouldn't do it here. This is a patented town. I got important
people behind me. The authorities will protect me."

"You're rushing things," Tesno said. "I haven't hired out yet."

"You will," Pinky said. "Vickers will meet your price and you'll hire
on. I hope you do. You've been riding for a fall for a long time."

The bloodshot eyes shifted briefly. Tesno was aware of a man standing
a few feet to his left. He turned slowly and saw a lean, dark-eyed
young man dressed to present the general aspect of a barber pole. He
wore black boots, trousers, and hat, and a silk shirt with wide pink
stripes. The ivory handle of a revolver curved out from his hip like a
misplaced tusk. A badge gleamed on his chest. He took a step forward,
right hand resting on gun handle.

"You can't wear a gun in this town, cowboy," he said sternly.

Tesno squarely turned his back and picked up his drink. Pinky Bronklin
looked faintly amused now.

"This here is town marshal Pete Madrid," Pinky said. "Meet Jack Tesno,
Pete. The famous bully-boy."

"I don't care who he is," Pete Madrid said with an ugly purr in his
voice. "He's got ten seconds to shuck that gun."

Tesno tossed down his drink and set the glass on the bar. "Town
ordinance?"

"You might say so. Five seconds, cowboy."

Tesno had a lopsided grin that brought a dimple to his left cheek and
none to his right. He flashed it on Pinky now and moved his hands to
the buckle of his gunbelt. He let the belt fall free and swung it
toward Madrid, still not looking at him. The marshal caught the belt
with a little flourish and stepped up to the bar.

"How about the house buying, Pinky," he said in a new tone. Hostility
seemed to have left him.

"No thanks," Tesno said.

"No hard feelings," Madrid said.

"None. When I start drawing Ben Vickers' pay, I'll be around for that
gun."

"Sure," Madrid said. "Just don't wear it in town."

"Depends," Tesno said.

"I'd just take it off you again."

"No. If I put it on again, you won't take it off me." Tesno flashed the
lopsided grin and walked out of the saloon.

Pinky poured Madrid a drink. "Congratulations, Pete. It takes a man to
face down that ringtail."

Madrid laid Tesno's gunbelt on the bar, trying not to seem too pleased
with himself. "Wish the man had been friendlier. I like to get along
with everybody. Makes my job easier."

"He ain't the friendly kind," Pinky said.

"You tangled with him before?"

"Idaho. I had a tent saloon; big wall tent, cost me four hundred
dollars. Had another thousand in liquor and gambling equipment. Set up
close to a construction camp. Tesno come along, said to move. I had
a territorial license and wouldn't do it. He knocked down the tent
and worked it over with a disc harrow. Nothing left but a pile of
whisky-soaked rags."

"You should have blasted him," Madrid said. "Law would have been on
your side."

"It would? Listen, four reservation bucks come along, wrung out the
rags, and got crazy drunk. Tesno brought out the sheriff, and I got
arrested for peddling booze to Indians!"

"Hell of a thing," Madrid said, picking up the gunbelt and moving away.
"Well, I got work to do."

Pinky knew what he meant. There were folks who ought to be notified
that Tesno was in town.




II


Tesno turned into a pine-wrapped road that wound the short quarter-mile
to the construction camp. The cool and fragrant solitude touched some
deeply hidden need in him and pulled at him, but he shook off the mood
and strode ahead, tense and swaggering, eager to see Ben Vickers.

He found him in a cabin behind the bunkhouse, hunched over a table
cluttered with papers held down by rocks. Ben was talking with a
dapper, white-bearded man who paced the room. When he saw Tesno, Ben
snatched off bent spectacles and leaped to his feet.

"Never was so glad to see a man!" he exclaimed, bouncing around the
table to shake hands. He had a bland face and a topknot of gray hair
that gave him the look of a kewpie doll. This look, Tesno knew, was
deceptive. Ben Vickers had his failings, but blandness wasn't one of
them. "You can start in the morning."

"Not so fast," Tesno said, grinning. "I'm not sure I'll like the work.
Your letter gave no details."

"I've no time to chit-chat." Ben nodded toward the white-bearded man.
"You ever met Jack Tesno, Mr. Jay?"

"Never had the pleasure." Clear blue eyes measured Tesno as they shook
hands. Tesno had known of Jerome J. Jay for years. The man had made a
reputation by taking over jobs other contractors had found too tough to
finish. His being here might be a bad sign.

"If I barged in on something, I'll come back," Tesno said.

"I think we've finished our talk," Mr. Jay said, turning to Ben. "I'll
see you again in a few days."

"If you can make better sense," Ben said.

"I've offered you a chance to get out with your shirt. Think damned
good and hard about it." Mr. Jay touched his gray derby, nodded to
Tesno, and strode out of the cabin.

"Sounds like he's trying to move in on you," Tesno said.

Ben strolled to his chair and sat down heavily. "I never cut a tunnel
before. He has."

"He wants to buy your contract?"

"You could call it that. I'd lose what I've already sunk into the
job--which is a fortune."

Tesno sat down and tilted his chair back against the log wall, his boot
heels hooked over a rung.

"This job is do-or-die," Ben said. "I've mortgaged every horse, wagon,
and harness snap I own. On top of everything else, I guaranteed the
railroad I'd dig their damn tunnel in twenty-eight months. I backed
up the guarantee by posting a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond; cash
money. If I hit daylight one hour late, I forfeit the bond.

"Mr. Jay offered to buy the contract for a hundred thousand, the amount
of the bond. He would also take over my debts, but he'd save the cost
of building the camp and a road and hauling men and equipment up here."
Ben sighed, blowing upward at his kewpie-doll topknot. "He knows I'm
forty days behind schedule and maybe can be tempted to pull out before
I'm a complete pauper."

"Forty days!" Tesno said. "What cost you that much time?"

Ben made a sweeping gesture. "I had to build forty-five miles of
mountain road. Had to build an all-weather camp. Set up an electric
plant so we can light the bore with arc lamps. Got a sawmill going.
Then there's the tunnel itself. Right at the exact spot marked on
the map for the east portal, there was a damn waterfall. Had to move
it--the waterfall. That cost me a week."

"You working from both ends toward the middle?"

"Naturally," Ben said. "But we're drilling by hand and the daily
footage isn't half what it should be.... I've ordered a seven-ton
boiler from Connecticut, Jack. With that, I can get compressors working
and use Ingersoll drills. If it gets here soon enough, I might make it.
If you can get the town in line...."

"I wondered when you'd get around to the town."

Ben wagged his head sadly, then smoothed his topknot. "Duke Parker got
the jump on me there. Took out a townsite claim before I ever thought
of such a thing. Jack this is the only spot within five miles that
isn't practically straight up and down!"

"What happened to Duke, Ben?"

"The fool tried to skid a log down an icy slope. It ran over him. I
guess they picked him up in a bucket."

"Seems like you might buy out his widow, run the town to suit yourself."

"Persia. She's got some kind of grudge against me, won't even set a
price. Anyhow, it would be sky high. The saloons and faro tables are
making her rich."

"And ruining you."

"You know what booze and gambling will do to a construction gang, Jack.
And you've seen it bad, I know, but you've never seen anything like
what I've got right now. Short crews every day: fights, accidents. Men
broke all the time and grumbling. Best foreman I ever had got lucky
at faro and got stabbed on his way back to camp. I've got a Swede
tool-dresser in the hospital in Ellensburg, shot by a blackleg in a
gambling argument."

"I don't know," Tesno said, scowling into the brightness as Ben
lighted a lamp. "If this was the usual fly-by-night, tent-city type
of operation, I'd know what to do. But a patented town with its own
officials is a different animal."

"You cleaned up Spokane Falls."

"Sure, with a sizable group of decent businessmen to back me up. I'd
guess there are precious few of those in Tunneltown."

Ben smiled mirthlessly. "You looked it over?"

"I ran into Pinky Bronklin and that candy-striped marshal."

"Madrid? He made a reputation as an express guard on the OR & N. Killed
two bandits who tried to rob his car."

"I've heard the story," Tesno said. "I also heard they were half-frozen
hoboes looking for a place to get warm."

Ben nodded grimly, then he spread his palms above the littered
tabletop. "I'm not asking for miracles, Jack. I'll settle for
midnight closing, no Sunday sales, no sales to drunks. Get rid of the
knockout-drop artists and the drunk rollers. And the gambling. It
causes as much trouble as the booze. There's a territorial statute that
forbids casino gambling, but the county sheriff is the nearest law
officer--sixty miles away at Ellensburg. The best he could do was agree
to deputize any troublebuster I hire."

"Damned if I'll ride down there just to get a badge."

"Suit yourself. I'll put you on the payroll as of tomorrow."

"I figure to start tonight," Tesno said.

"What you going to do tonight?"

Tesno grinned one-sidedly. "Call on Persia Parker."

Ben pursed his lips and made a little gesture of resignation. Both men
got to their feet.

"There's room in the east bunkhouse," Ben said.

"How's that hotel in town?"

"Fair enough. No bugs."

"I'll stay there, send you the bill."

"Now hold your horses," Ben said. "When did you get too persnickety to
sleep in a bunkhouse?"

"Hotel's handier."

Ben glared. "All right, you damn bandit. Anything else?"

"Just tell me where to find the Parker woman."

"Lady," he corrected. "She runs a rotten town, she hates my liver, but
she's a lady." Ben appraised Tesno narrowly. "If you don't know what
that is, Jack, you're damn well going to get educated."




III


Tunneltown had only one thoroughfare that attained the stature of a
street. It had a network of lanes, wagon tracks, and alleys. They slid
between buildings, twisted around woodpiles, lumbered over ditches
on makeshift bridges. Many of these wound back to the main drag or
meandered off into the woods. Others converged on a large log building
of chalet-like aspect known as "the townhouse." This structure had two
identical front entrances, one near each end. The southernmost of these
led to the town offices and a small courtroom. The other end of the
building provided a spacious residence for Duke Parker's widow.

Tesno's thump of the ornate, pear-shaped knocker was answered by a trim
young woman in a maid's cap. As soon as she heard his name, she swung
the door wide and stepped back as if she had been expecting him.

Surprised, he followed her into a large living room. Simple maple
furniture and light blue draperies gave the room a touch of luxury
without seeming out of place up here in the wilderness. A wide doorway
led to the dining room, where he glimpsed two persons seated at a table.

"I vill tell Mrs. Parker you are here," the maid said. She had a slight
Swedish accent.

"Have him come in, Stella," a feminine voice called.

Tesno followed the maid into the dining room. Persia Parker was
having dinner with Sam Lester, the town treasurer, whom she promptly
introduced.

"Will you join us, Mr. Tesno?" she said. "We're having duck."

Silverware and stemmed goblets glistened on a snow-white tablecloth.
Red wine sparkled in the goblets. The duck looked delicious.

"Thanks," Tesno said, "but this is a business call, Mrs. Parker. I'm
sorry to interrupt...."

"You haven't had dinner; I can sense it. Sit down, Mr. Tesno."

Persia Parker smiled deliciously, and he sat down. Stella immediately
set a place for him. He grinned and said, "You have a sixth sense, Mrs.
Parker."

"At breakfast and lunch I just grab and gulp," she said, "so I like to
make a little ceremony of the evening meal. So it's a treat to have a
guest--oh, Sam doesn't count."

Thin-haired, hunch-shouldered Sam Lester looked up from his plate. He
wore shot-glass-thick lenses that hid his eyes and gave his face a
froglike placidity.

"She feeds me," he said. He put down his fork and reached for a wine
bottle. Persia shook her head in refusal. He filled Tesno's glass and
then his own.

"Sam lives above the offices in the other part of the building," Persia
said, smiling again.

She had white, even teeth, the complexion of an angel, and hair as pale
as Montana gold. Her eyes were a mysterious shade that Tesno couldn't
decide about, but they were frank and friendly.

"I drag him in to dinner most every night," she went on. "Sometimes
I think he would prefer to bolt down a sandwich and get back to his
precious bookkeeping. What part of the country are you from, Mr. Tesno?"

The wine was mellow, fragrant with the scent of some fertile, faraway
valley. "I was born in New Mexico Territory," he said. "Got into
railroading when the Santa Fe was fighting the Denver & Rio Grande for
Raton Pass."

Stella set a plate before him with half a roasted duck on it. He was
hungry, but he ate without tasting, captivated by the charm of Persia
Parker.

She pried him with questions about himself, touching him with eyes that
were green or gray or hazel, smiling when he smiled, making him feel
that every word he said was important to her. He was not a talkative
man, but now he talked as he seldom had before.

He told about his parents being killed by Comanches when he was a few
months old, about the whisky-running renegade who had bought him from
the Indians and raised him. He told how he had hired out as a wrangler
when he was twelve, how a rancher's wife had taught him lessons and
lent him books to read. And Persia Parker laughed and frowned and
touched him with her eyes, warily now, as if afraid of the tenderness
he saw there, afraid he might misunderstand.

Sam Lester seemed content to be ignored. He finished his coffee
quickly, muttered that he had paper work to do, and left them alone.

Persia lead Tesno into the parlor. She was taller than he had expected.
She wore a simple, black, ankle-length dress, and he remembered that
her husband had been dead less than three months. Yet black set off her
pale hair, and he couldn't picture her in anything more becoming. She
indicated a chair for him and sat down on a sofa two feet away.

"I expect you're a busy woman," he said. "I'd better get to the point."

"I'm not half as busy as you'd think, Mr. Tesno," she said. "The town
pretty much runs itself. And my position is entirely unofficial, you
know. My husband was mayor, and after his death, I took over some of
the more ceremonial duties of the office--temporarily, I thought. But
the town council likes the novelty, and I'm afraid, the notoriety, of
having a 'lady mayor.' This is no ordinary community, and they seem to
feel that anything that adds to its uniqueness is good for business. So
they keep postponing the election of Duke's successor."

"You also own most of the business property in town," he said. "Isn't
that true?"

She nodded readily. "Duke didn't try very hard to sell lots because
when the tunnel is finished, the town will fade away. At least, that's
the probability. So he put up buildings and leased them to businessmen
on a percentage basis. A few businesses he operated himself, of course."

"So as heir to his estate, you're in a position to tell the town
council what to do."

"Not exactly," she said, frowning. "At least, I don't. In fact, it
seems as if somebody is always telling _me_ what to do. Sometimes I
feel a bit trapped, Mr. Tesno."

"You know I work for Ben Vickers?"

"I presumed you did."

"You must know what the town is doing to his men. A booze town and a
construction job don't mix."

"It isn't a nice town," she admitted soberly. "But it makes money. And
I owe Ben Vickers nothing."

Tesno's eyebrows went up. "Without him there'd be no town."

"He's fought us every step of the way," she said, emotion creeping into
her voice. "If it hadn't been for Ben Vickers, my husband would be
alive today."

Tesno was startled. "I didn't know that."

"Duke brought a crew of workmen up here to build Tunneltown. Ben
Vickers coaxed most of them away by offering them a bonus to work for
him. That left us awfully short-handed, and Duke pitched in himself. He
wasn't used to that kind of work, and he got killed.... Oh, I know that
Vickers was only playing a rough game the way it's played. I don't want
to be bitter. I'd give a good deal to have a cleaner town."

"You could clean it up."

"Me?" She seemed genuinely surprised.

"You and the town council. And the marshal. Maybe he'd need a deputy or
two."

"I don't know. The trouble is that we're making money."

"That's always the trouble. At least, it's always the argument. But
there's a good deal of honest business in town. There's a livery barn
and smithy, a general store, hotel, barber shop, restaurant...."

"Most of those aren't doing very well, Mr. Tesno."

"Has it occurred to you that the saloons and gambling tables are
hurting them?"

"No," she said thoughtfully. "I suppose there's money spent in the
saloons that could be spent elsewhere. But, Mr. Tesno, three of the
members of the council are saloonkeepers. The other is the hotel man."

"Is Pinky Bronklin on the council?"

"Mr. Bronklin? Yes."

"Mrs. Parker, would you call a meeting of the council and tell them
what I want?"

"There's a meeting of the council tomorrow night."

"Fine. On second thought, I'll tell them myself."

"That's probably best. But what do you want, Mr. Tesno?"

"Midnight and Sunday closing. No booze sold to drunks. No gambling.
That will do for a start."

Persia sighed heavily, then quickly smiled as if amused at herself.
"I've heard those words so often from Ben Vickers. The council has
heard them, too. What makes you think you'll get them to listen?"

"They'll listen," he said.

"Maybe they will," she said soberly. "I guess if they'll listen to
anyone, it will be you. I wish you luck."

He grinned his lopsided grin and started to rise, but she was on her
feet ahead of him. She brushed past him, laying a hand on his shoulder
to keep him in his chair.

"I'll get you some brandy," she said. Before he could protest, she was
gone, and he chided himself for the surge of warmth that her casual
touch aroused in him.

She was back at once with a brandy bottle and a glass, saying that she
had neglected her duties as a hostess. She poured him a drink and sat
down again, not having one herself.

"I'm taking up your evening," he said.

"Mr. Tesno, you have a cigar in your pocket. I wish you'd smoke it."

He smoked it, remembering not to chew the end. They talked and laughed
softly and got acquainted. She told him about herself; how she had
grown up in her aunt's Tacoma boarding house, how she had met Duke
Parker there and run away with him. She would have married anyone,
she said (curiously, he thought), who would take her away from the
dawn-to-after-dark routine of cooking, cleaning, and table-waiting.
She spoke, too, of the house Duke had built on the bluff above
Commencement Bay, of sailing parties and picnics and clam-digging at
Gig Harbor.

He might have wearied of such talk from another woman, but he cherished
every word Persia Parker spoke, weighing it for the subtle, personal
message that seemed to be hidden in it. It was as if some strange,
almost mystic accident were giving him a glimpse of a world he had
never known could exist--not the world she spoke about, but the lovely
mysterious world of herself.

At last he rose to leave, reluctantly, the cigar long since discarded.
She went to the door with him. When he had walked a few steps into the
night, he turned, and she was a waving silhouette in the bright frame
of the doorway. Jauntily, he threw her a kiss, wondering if she could
see him plainly enough to make out the gesture. She waved again. The
door closed. Picking his way in the thick darkness, he moved along an
unfamiliar path toward the scattered lights of the main street.

       *       *       *       *       *

Persia stood frowning at the white surface of the closed door.
Footsteps in the parlor told her that Sam Lester had come in from the
other part of the building. After a moment, she went to meet him.

"I didn't expect he'd be quite so ... nice," Persia said.

"What did he say?" Sam seemed an emotionless little robot as his thick
lenses caught the light from a lamp.

"He's going to be at the council meeting tomorrow night."

"I don't think so," Sam said.

"Why not? It's best to have him dealing with the council."

"He has to go. It's been decided."

"Why? Is he so fierce? Mr. Madrid took his gun."

"Mr. Jay wasn't impressed," Sam said. "He said Vickers has hired
himself a he-coon." Sam sat down beside the brandy bottle and poured
himself a stiff drink.

"Sam," Persia said, "I wish I owned this town as everyone thinks I do.
I'd cash in and get out. Ben Vickers would pay a pretty price for it."

"Get out anyhow, Persia."

"No!" she said emphatically. "Not till I can take a lot of money with
me."

"I'd take care of you. You know that."

"Please, Sam. Don't start that."

She sat down at the far end of the sofa to avoid looking into the
thick lenses. She didn't want to hurt his feelings. He was forty--an
old forty--and she was twenty-three. He was a dull, ugly little man;
a twenty-dollar-a-week bookkeeper when Duke had picked him up. But he
was smart about accounts and legal documents. And he was loyal. He
protected her from any shenanigans Mr. Jay might have in mind.

Mr. Jay and Duke had been partners of a sort, although this had been a
tightly kept secret. The townsite papers were in Duke's name; but it
had been Mr. Jay's money that had built the town and he had put himself
firmly in control by tying Duke up with notes and contracts and such.
Duke had found himself a mere front--just as she was now, passing Mr.
Jay's decisions on to the council as if they were her own. She, Sam,
and Mr. Madrid, and possibly Mr. Pinky Bronklin, were the only ones who
knew this.

Mr. Jay's determination was sometimes frightening. He meant to take
over Ben Vickers' contract, and he wanted as wild and dirty a town as
possible in order to slow down the work. Some of Vickers' key men had
been drugged or beaten. Without coming right out and saying so, Sam had
made it clear that Mr. Jay had arranged these incidents. Oh, it was all
a pretty rotten business, but there was a chance to make money here, a
chance a woman didn't often get. She thought of that boarding house in
Tacoma and shuddered. She would die before she went back there.

All the income from rents, leases, and the sale of real estate was
going to pay off Duke's debt to Mr. Jay. The only thing in the clear
was a three-quarter interest in the Pink Lady, which was in Persia's
name and not part of Duke's estate. Since the town paid her living
expenses out of tax money, she was able to put aside this income from
the saloon each month. It was a tidy little sum but not enough to make
a person rich--not in the year or so of existence the town had left.

Her great hope was that Mr. Jay would take over the tunnel contract
soon. He could then come out in the open and he would buy the township
proprietorship from Duke's estate, writing off the debts and putting up
a tidy bit of cash besides. He would also buy the Pink Lady. And thanks
to Sam Lester, Persia had this agreement in writing.

Sam set down his glass and refilled it. "You're honest enough with me,
Persia. I'm grateful for that."

Before he could go on, she switched the subject back to Tesno. "Sam,
how are they going to get rid of him?"

"There's nothing we can do about it."

"Sam, I want to know."

"They're going to put him in the hospital."

"I won't have that!" Persia sat up straight. "I ... I'll see Mr. Jay
first thing in the morning!"

Sam sipped his drink. "Persia, I never wanted to marry, but now--"

"Sam, please!" She spoke harshly, sharply. Then she smiled and said
softly, "Please."

Sam sighed, drained his glass, and looked speculatively at the bottle.
"Forget about seeing Mr. Jay in the morning. It will happen tonight.
It's probably happening right now."

Persia found herself on her feet, hurrying to the door. There she
stopped, frowning thoughtfully.

"There's nothing anybody can do," Sam said from the parlor.

Then she went back to the sofa and sat down. Sam spoke tonelessly.

"Madrid took his gun; now some money fighter is going to put him in
the hospital. It will be a joke around town, Mr. Jay said, all that
happening to the big troublebuster the first night he gets in town. It
won't be too bad, I guess, Persia. Maybe it's all over by now. Put it
out of your mind."

"Yes." She gave a curious little shrug. "Put it out of my mind. There's
nothing else to do."

They sat in silence for a time. Then she said, "Sam, if we went away
from here, where would we go?"




IV


The main street was an empty, lonely place in spite of the humming
bright tunnels of the town's saloons. Tesno stepped off the boardwalk
into the dark river of the street, angling toward a dim white globe
with HOTEL lettered on it. The pasty-faced night clerk looked up from a
game of solitaire as he entered the cluttered lobby. The air was heavy
with stale smoke and the smell of unpainted wood.

"I had your saddlebags and blanket roll brought down from the livery,"
the clerk said, slapping Tesno's key on the desk. "And, oh, a Mr.
Warren wanted to see you. He said to tell you he'd be at the Pink Lady.
That's a saloon."

"Warren? Did he say what he wanted?"

"He said Mr. Vickers' sent him."

Tesno muttered thanks. He stood toying with his key, then dropped it on
the desk and wheeled back into the night. He quickly walked the short
block to the Pink Lady, passing no one, not liking the darkness of the
town.

The saloon was full, the jangle of the piano half-smothered by the roar
of voices, the clink of glasses and faro checks, the whir and clatter
of a wheel of fortune. But as he paused inside the batwings, squinting
against the stale brightness, the noise ebbed. Heads turned toward him,
then cautiously away. And he knew at once something was in the air.

He sauntered on into the place. A little Irishman turned away from the
bar and hissed at him as he passed.

"Watch it, Bucko."

Tesno nodded at the man, who looked vaguely familiar. _So I walked into
it_, he thought. _They set me up, and I walked into it._ It would be
a fight, he guessed. Otherwise the crowd wouldn't know, wouldn't be
waiting for a show. Some hired tough had been bragging himself up to
it, probably, mouthing off about some pretended grudge.

Men made a place for him at the bar, and he took it. Pinky Bronklin
slid up and laid his pincerlike hand on the wood. He looked downright
cheerful.

"Man named Warren asked me to meet him here," Tesno said. "You know
him?"

Pinky shook his head. The white scar glistened on his flushed face.
"You want a drink?"

"I'll have a cigar."

Pinky moved away. Tesno turned casually away from the bar. A huge blond
man with a broken nose got up from a table and swaggered toward the
bar. Tesno made room for him but still got an elbow in the ribs. The
man was half a head taller than Tesno's six feet, outweighed him by
forty pounds.

Silence clamped the room now. Even the piano had stopped. Pinky came up
with a box of cigars. Tesno took five, laid a quarter on the bar.

"Beer," the big man said. He turned to Tesno, looked him over, grinned.
There was a tooth missing from the grin.

"Your name Warren?" Tesno said, biting off the end of a cigar.

"This here is Hobo Hobson," Pinky said, setting a bottle of beer on the
bar. "Hobo, meet Mr. Tesno."

"I figured this was him," Hobson said loudly. "He killed a friend of
mine at Pend Oreille. Shot him in the back."

"Not so!" A high-pitched voice came from near the door, and Tesno saw
that the little Irishman had stepped out from the crowd. "I was there.
Ace Gandy was blazing away with a revolver when he died. Tesno took a
slug in the leg before he even fired."

Someone pulled the man back. Hobson faced the bar as if to pick up his
beer; instead, he swung at Tesno's head with a vicious backhanded blow.
Tensed for something of the kind, Tesno stepped back. Hobson's hand
missed its target but sent the cigar flying from Tesno's mouth.

"My fault," Tesno said mildly, giving the man room.

Hobson's grin was broader than ever. A shock of blond hair had
fallen across his forehead, and he seemed more animal than man. A
stand-up-and-swing, stomp-a-man-when-he's-down fighter, Tesno thought.
A bear-hugger and an eye-gouger. But a man who depended on his own
monstrous strength and fighting knowledge rather than on weapons. Not
the sort to pull a knife or a Henry D.

"It seems this Tesno backs away from a fight when he ain't got a gun,"
Hobson said.

"Depends," Tesno said. He sent his glance over the crowd, which had
coagulated into a half circle. In front of a faro table near the far
wall, he spotted Madrid's barber-pole shirt. He raked a match across
his rump and lighted another cigar.

"Who sent you?" he asked Hobson.

"Sent me? Sent me where?"

"I've seen back-country pros before. You're a Sunday-afternoon pug, a
winner-take-all man who doesn't fight for fun. Who's paying you?"

"You killed a friend of mine. That's enough."

Hobson tipped up the bottle of beer, drank deeply, set it down. Tesno
laid his cigar on the edge of the bar.

Hobson took one leisurely step forward, then charged, lashing out
with his great fists. Throwing up his hands to guard his head, Tesno
turned sideways and aimed his left foot at Hobson's left knee. He took
a sledgehammer blow on the shoulder that knocked him off balance, but
not till he had got his boot sole against the knee. Twisting with his
weight against it, he felt the kneecap slide out of place.

Hobson gave a strange little yelp of pain. Stumbling, he grabbed his
knee with both hands. Tesno was on him like a cat, seizing him by the
hair, hauling him forward. Then he plunged his own knee into the man's
face to send him careening into a poker table and off it to the floor
in an avalanche of cards and chips. Dazed and awkward, bleeding from
his mouth, Hobson struggled to get to his feet. Tesno caught him at the
base of the skull with a short brutal rabbit-punch that dropped him
open-mouthed and motionless in the filthy sawdust of the floor.

For a moment, nothing broke the silence. Then someone cursed
reverently. "God! God almighty damn!" And a rooster cry rose from the
end of the bar--the little Irishman, no doubt.

Tesno sauntered to the bar and stuck the cigar between his teeth. "Some
of you boys pick him up," he said. "Lug him to the jail."

The little Irishman broke from the crowd, gesturing to others. Four
of them turned Hobo Hobson on his back preparatory to lifting him.
But Pete Madrid stood over them, muttering something, and they
straightened. Madrid faced Tesno tensely.

"Who in hell do you think you are?" Madrid said. "You've no authority
to jail a man."

"I want him locked up for the night. And a doctor had better look at
him. We'll use the town jail, Marshal."

"You'll use it. You and Hobson both."

"Maybe you haven't got the straight of it," Tesno said. "I tried to
back off. Every man here witnessed it."

Madrid's hand made a snake-strike at his hip and came up with his
revolver. He gestured toward the door with it and said, "Get moving,
cowboy."

The cigar had gone out, and Tesno relighted it. Madrid aimed the gun
at Tesno's feet. "Walk to jail or go there crippled. It makes no
difference to me."

Tesno headed for the door, swaggering a little, puffing the cigar. As
he passed Madrid, he said, "This is the second mistake you've made
today, Marshal."

The marshal's office was in a squat log building at the foot of the
street. Tesno entered it first. Madrid followed and turned up a
low-burning lamp in a wall bracket. The jail was a single cell at
the rear of the office. Its iron-bound wooden door stood open. Tesno
stopped beside a flat-top desk in the center of the room. The men from
the saloon lugged Hobson past him and deposited him on a bunk in the
cell. He was still out cold.

"He needs a doctor," Tesno said.

Madrid still held the revolver. He made no reply except to gesture
toward the cell with it. Tesno stepped inside the cell and pulled the
door shut behind him. He peered out through the small barred window in
the door.

Madrid waved the men who had carried Hobson to one side. "Step back
from the door," he said to Tesno.

Tesno backed up two short steps. Madrid holstered his gun and moved
forward to lock the cell, which was fitted with a hasp and staple. A
huge padlock with the key in it hung from the staple.

Tesno raised his hands and plunged into the door. It smashed into the
marshal, knocking the padlock from his hand as he staggered backward.
Tesno dived into him, seizing his gun hand as it flashed to his hip,
driving him hard into a corner of the desk, falling on top of him as he
hit the floor.

Tesno was quickly on his feet, the marshal's gun in his hand. Madrid
lay on his back, hurt by his collision with the desk, struggling
noisily for wind. Tesno seized him by the heels, dragged him roughly
into the cell, snapped the lock into place. The little Irishman burst
into a high-pitched laugh.

"Now who ever heard of such a thing? He jailed the marshal."

"Get a doctor, Mike."

"Only one's at Vickers' camp."

"Get him. I'll be back at the Pink Lady."

He yanked open desk drawers till he found his own revolver and gunbelt.
He buckled it on, feeling weariness rise in him like a quick-acting
drug, wanting nothing so much as his hotel room and its bed. But it was
necessary now to show himself back at the saloon, to buy these men a
drink. That was the way the game was played. You came in tough. And you
swaggered a little for the crowd.




V


"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Mr. Jay said when he answered the knock on
the door of his suite at the hotel.

"Take it easy," Pete Madrid said, pushing past him. "I'm the one who
got hurt."

Mr. Jay's beard jerked angrily. "Did you have to come straight here?
Don't you know he'll be watching you?"

"I'm not that stupid. He's having breakfast at the restaurant."

They went into Mr. Jay's little parlor. Madrid eased himself into a
chair. Mr. Jay stood glaring at him.

"So he let you out. Hobson too?" Mr. Jay said.

"He and Hobson are having breakfast together."

"Will Hobson talk?"

"Maybe. But all he can say is that Pinky promised him ten dollars
if he'd break some bones. Pinky had a grudge from back in Idaho, so
there's nothing to point to anybody else."

Mr. Jay considered that. When he spoke, his tone was milder. "We've all
been stupid. We underestimated the man. How bad are you hurt?"

"Busted rib. It isn't so bad since Doc strapped me up."

"Vickers' doctor?"

Madrid nodded. "I can still draw a gun."

Mr. Jay's beard jerked sternly. "We won't have any of that."

"Seems like the only way left."

"It's what we should have done in the first place, maybe. But after
what's happened it would be too raw. We'd have the railroad down on us,
the county sheriff up here. No, for the time being well play Tesno's
game."

"That means a clean-up."

"We'll go through the motions. We'll enforce a curfew for a while,
send a few gamblers packing. The important thing is for us to do it,
not him."

Madrid scowled, as if he didn't understand or didn't agree. Mr. Jay
walked to a window and stared out, hands behind his back.

"In the meantime," Mr. Jay said, "you're to get along with him. He's
top-dogged you, and you're going to have to live with it. Do you
understand that?"

"I try to get along with everybody," Madrid said. "It makes things
easier."

Mr. Jay turned his back to the window, moving in the quick irritable
way that he had. He studied the marshal a moment, then he sighed. His
manner suddenly became paternal.

"You're young, Pete--which is a polite way of saying you're a fool.
Pride, being top dog, paying off a grudge, these things are a waste
of energy unless there's money involved. Maybe you'll learn that some
day." Mr. Jay faced the window again, looking across the patch of woods
toward Vickers' camp. "If you live long enough."

       *       *       *       *       *

Tesno found Ben Vickers at the tunnel. Ben had heard about his jailing
the marshal and was in a jubilant mood. After he had slapped Tesno's
back innumerable times, they entered the portal and he enthusiastically
explained his method of tunneling.

There were a lot of niceties to it, but the basis was the digging of an
eight-foot heading in advance of the lower part of the bore. Shoring
was put in behind the heading crew, then replaced by another set of
timbers as the bench was removed.

"Most expensive procedure ever devised for tunneling through rock,"
Ben said, grinning. "But damn it, it's the fastest, too. At least
in theory. In practice--well, we have to get those Ingersoll drills
working, that's all."

When they emerged from the dim, dust-filled chamber, the world had
taken on a strange new vividness, Tesno thought. The panorama of men
and horses at work on the side cuts seemed a distant creation. The
sunlight itself and the nagging mountain wind had a foreign quality.
It was as if he had strayed onto some unsuspected reality that he could
observe but never be a part of.

He noticed that the slashing was in progress in the timber high above,
and he remembered hearing that the railroad would use a switchback
over the mountain till the tunnel was completed. He asked Ben who was
building it.

"Three different contractors," Ben said. "I have a piece on this side.
Mr. Jay has one of the far sections."

It seemed a cumbersome, impatient bit of railroading. And in that
curious moment of detachment, Tesno felt that he was watching a race of
madmen at play. Obsessed with money and mechanics, they wouldn't rest
till they had driven steel toys over this ragged sea of mountains to
a remote corner of the land. And why? Was it really an accomplishment
to bring the thing called civilization to Puget Sound? "All this to
reach a little bay tucked away between the fingers of land on the West
Coast." The thought amused him and he laughed aloud.

"What's funny?" Ben demanded.

Tesno grinned uncomfortably. "Sort of a private joke."

Ben shot him an impatient look and went to consult with a pair of
engineers who were studying a diagram, holding it between them with
their backs to the wind. Hearing a chuckle behind him, Tesno turned and
found himself confronting a tall, hawk-faced man leaning on a shovel.

"A gun tough who's a philosopher," the workman said. "Now that is
something."

"And a shovel bum with educated diction. That's something, too."

The man hesitated, then extended his hand. He was bone thin, a little
stooped, and his smile was sad. "Name's Dave Coons. Itinerant actor,
confidence man, peddlar, phrenologist, and what have you. Currently a
shovel bum, doing a bit of soul-saving on the side."

Tesno shook hands without heartiness. "A preacher?"

"Somebody has to carry the word to these poor bastards." Coons waved a
hand to indicate the workmen around him.

"And take up a collection?"

"No. I sweat for my pay like everybody else. Mostly I just sit in a
corner of the bunkhouse and talk about God. Those who want to listen
join me. There are damn few, of course."

"You don't talk like a preacher."

"I make it a point not to. I've been known to get a snootful, too, and
last week, I had a fist fight with a heckler. He thumped the daylights
out of me. You here to boss Tunneltown?"

"Depends," Tesno said.

"The booze is rotten and the games crooked. The town brings Vickers'
payroll right back to him."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He and the Parker girl are in together, aren't they?"

"Then why would he hire me?"

"How do I know? He's a cagey man."

"You're badly informed," Tesno said. "Tunneltown is a thorn in his
side. It's slowing down his operation and he wants it cleaned up."

Coons' hollow-set black eyes were skeptical. "I'll believe it when I
see it," he muttered.

"Believe what you please," Tesno growled.

He started to turn away, but Coons drew himself up with mock solemnity,
placed a hand against his chest and recited:

"'Oh, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant."

He smiled and said, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Tesno. I have a feeling I'll
be seeing you later." He wandered off, shovel on his shoulder, and
joined a crew working on a small fill.

Ben came up, his eyes following Coons.

"What did that crackpot want?"

"I don't know," Tesno said.

"He usually has complaints about the food or working conditions. He
considers himself a spokesman for the men. That kind can make trouble."

"I liked the man," Tesno muttered.

He rode back to camp alone, letting the company mule pick its way down
a steep trail that clung to the gulch wall. Ben was a slave-driver, he
thought. What successful contractor wasn't? Somewhere in the process
of clawing and gambling his way up from the ranks, he had lost the
capacity to understand a man who sat around the bunkhouse and talked
about God. We were all crackpots, Tesno thought, each man in his own
way.

He left the mule at the company corral, lunched at the cookhouse, and
made the short walk to town. He found the saloons already busy with
cooks, freighters, and a few night-shift men having a midday drink or
a try at the games. He counted fifteen faro tables in town, not all of
them operating at this hour. He spotted one game that was definitely
crooked and he suspected there were more.

He visited the Pink Lady last, finding Madrid at the bar in
conversation with Pinky Bronklin. They drew apart as he approached, and
customers turned to watch.

Tesno stepped a few feet away, glad of a chance to face the marshal
before witnesses. Madrid was freshly shaved and had put on a clean
shirt. This one had broad green stripes. Its sleeves were encircled by
red garters.

"My god," Tesno said. "You look like a Christmas tree."

"What's the matter with a little style?" Madrid said defensively. His
tone was not that of a man looking for a showdown.

"Black is for corpses," Pinky muttered. His eyes raked Tesno. "It will
look nice on you."

"Hobson sang, Pinky," Tesno said, stepping up to the bar.

"What's that to me?"

"You know what it is, but I'll say it. You paid him to pick a fight."

"He said that? He's a liar," Pinky said.

"I'll bring him in here. You can say it to his face."

"No chance of that," Madrid put in. "Hobson left town. Took the
Ellensburg stage." The marshal swung away and idled over to a faro game.

Tesno eyed Pinky silently.

"Hobson lied," Pinky said desperately. "He must be covering for
somebody else."

"You protest too much," Tesno said.

He caught Pinky by the hair, pulled him forward, and slapped him
resoundingly on one cheek and then the other. He suddenly shoved him
away and Pinky staggered into the back bar.

The customers watched in silence. Madrid made no move; he scarcely
looked up from the faro game. Pinky glared, his face flushed. There
would be a gun behind the bar somewhere, Tesno thought. But the
saloonkeeper made no attempt to go for it. Tesno spun on his heel and
walked out of the saloon. As he pushed through the swinging doors,
there was a tide of low talk and uneasy laughter. A muffled comment met
his ears:

"Damned high-handed troublebuster! Due for a takedown."

Loneliness stung him like a mountain wind as his bootheels drummed the
boardwalk. Pinky had got off easy. Didn't the crowd understand that?
The words Dave Coons had quoted rang in his memory:

    _Oh, it is excellent_
    _To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous_
    _To use it like a giant._

_Tyrant_, he called himself. _Damned high-hander! And Ben Vickers is a
slave-driver. And Coons a crackpot. And we are all working hard at it._

As he reached the hotel, someone called his name from across the
street. It was Whisky Willie Silverknife, who fell into a dog-trot and
arrived waving a folded paper.

"M-m-message for you. From M-Miss Persia."

Tesno had the note unfolded by the time Willie got the words out.

    Dear Mr. Tesno:

    The council meeting is at seven. Will you join me for dinner
    afterward?

    Persia Parker

"S-she s-said to t-tell me yes or n-no," Willie said.

"How come you're running her errands?"

"I hit her for a j-job, like you s-said." Willie blushed under his
freckles. "She d-didn't have one, not right away, b-but she s-said
maybe she'd think of s-something. She s-said if I was b-broke, which
I am, to come around to the k-kitchen for m-meals. After l-lunch she
g-gave me that n-note."

Willie slid the flask from his hip pocket and took a short drink. Tesno
re-read the note, searching for the sound of Persia's voice in every
word.

"Tell her yes."

Willie nodded, taking a deep breath to chase the whisky. "She's r-right
interested in you. When she found out I rode up here with you, she
asked all about you. I told her when I first s-seen you, you was laying
in the grass naked as a p-pup p-possum."

Tesno gave him a murderous look. Willie grinned.

"She l-laughed like hell," he said.




VI


The council meeting took place in a large, unpainted room in the
townhouse. Persia presided, just as if she were the legitimate mayor.
She sat at one end of a table, wearing a dark serge suit and looking
both businesslike and beautiful. Sam Lester sat at the other end,
inscrutable behind the crystal mask of his spectacles. The four council
members sat in between. Tesno drew up a chair to one side of Persia.

He listened impatiently while the members quibbled over the location of
a town watering trough. A rasp-voiced man named Parris, who operated
the hotel, did most of the talking. The three saloonkeeping councilmen
kept glancing at Persia as if she would make the decision and the
debate was a mere formality. Pinky Bronklin sat with his talonlike hand
on the table where all could see it and said hardly a word.

Persia introduced Tesno with some little formality. He stated his
demands as concisely as possible. He tried to avoid a dictatorial tone,
yet he made it clear that one way or another he intended to see a
drastic change in the town. When he had finished, the saloonkeepers sat
sullenly quiet. It was Mr. Parris who spoke up, and he was angry.

"I agree that we could stand some improvement around here," he said.
"But to request co-operation is one thing, to tell us what to do,
another. Begging your pardon, Persia, I move that we tell Mr. Tesno to
go to hell and then face our problems in our own way."

"That'll suit me fine, if you _will_ face them," Tesno said. "But
you'll clean up or I will. Take your choice."

"You'll clean up! Have you forgotten there's law in the land--and in
this town. And it's on our side!" Mr. Parris slapped the table and
glared.

"Law?" Tesno said icily. "You were elected by the drifting labor that
built this town. You run a town full of thugs and card sharks. And you
talk about law! Bring it on, Mr. Parris. While you're doing it, I'll
close your town down tight. And I'll guarantee you you'll wind up with
your charter pulled out from under you!"

"This won't do," Persia said. "You two agree that we ought to
do something. Mr. Tesno is willing to let us do it in our own
way--provided we do get results. Right, Mr. Tesno?"

"Right," he said.

"Then I don't see what you are arguing about. Mr. Tesno, now that
you've told us what you want, would you mind leaving us and letting us
thrash this out?"

"Fair enough," he said.

She had spoken crisply, almost hostilely. Now she said with a smile and
in an entirely different tone, "Wait in my parlor."

He followed a long hall that led to the other part of the house. He
entered the parlor and sat down to wait, musing about his abrupt
dismissal. He had the impression that Tunneltown council meetings
were little more than a mockery, that the members gathered to receive
instructions rather than to make their own decisions. Even Mr. Parris
had seemed to be arguing out of mere cantankerousness and not with any
real hope of seeing his views prevail if Persia was against them.

Probably Persia was now telling them exactly how far they would go
in co-operating with him. Or would it be Sam Lester who was doing
the telling? That Lester was a power behind the throne seemed a real
possibility. In any case, the council was a convenient device to avoid
the pinpointing of responsibility on an individual.

Annoyed, he strolled into the dining room and poured himself a glass
of brandy from a bottle on the sideboard. He could hear voices in the
kitchen--Stella's and a stammering tenor that could belong only to
Willie Silverknife. Returning to the parlor, he lighted a cigar and sat
sipping the strong and fragrant liquor.

Persia appeared sooner than he expected. She was alone, and he wondered
if Sam Lester would join them later. She insisted on getting him
another brandy, and she poured herself a glass of wine, which she
scarcely touched.

"You're going to get your blue-nosed town," she said gayly. "All I ask
from you, Mr. Tesno, is a small amount of patience."

He frowned, but before he could reply she went on.

"We passed a couple of ordinances. Midnight closing. No liquor sold to
drunks. We also agreed that a one-man police force isn't adequate, so
we're going to hire a deputy. Satisfied?"

"How about the gambling?"

"That's where the patience comes in."

He shook his head. "The gambling has to go, Persia."

She smiled at him very slightly, as she might at a stubborn child. "I
suppose you'll have your way, but, I shouldn't tell you this, Jack, but
I will." She used his first name so naturally that he didn't notice for
an instant. "Duke had to borrow heavily to build Tunneltown. He left me
broke and in debt. The town brings in quite a little money now--though
maybe not as much as most people think. But when I've made a monthly
payment on the debts, there's very little left. If the town didn't give
me my living expenses, I could scarcely get by. Now if the gambling
goes, at least two saloons will have to close. If I lose the money from
those leases, I'm ruined. There won't even be enough even to make the
payments to my creditors."

He made a small gesture of helplessness. "The last thing I want to do
is hurt _you_. But the gambling...."

"If we could just have a little time, we might find other kinds of
business that would lease those buildings."

"It isn't my time to give away," he said. "It's Ben's. And he hasn't
got much of it. How much do you need?"

"I've no idea."

"The crooked gamblers have to go right now along with the rest of the
riffraff. There can be no delay about that."

She nodded to this. "If I'd had my way, they'd have gone long ago."

"Don't you always have your way, Persia?"

She seemed mildly startled. She gave a little shrug. "How do you tell
which are crooked?"

"I can spot them for you."

"Jack, please. Keep out of it entirely. I ... I can't have Vickers' man
butting in. You can understand that."

"Yes." It stung him to have her call him somebody else's man, though it
wouldn't have bothered him if another person had said it.

She seemed to sense that he was hurt, and she gave him a long,
sympathetic, almost maternal look. She didn't speak, and it pleased him
to feel a communication between them that needed no words. They would
put aside their differences now and speak of other things.

"I'll tell Stella we're ready for dinner," she said.

As she passed his chair, she laid her hand on his shoulder as she had
the night before. Now he laid his over it. She stopped beside him,
and her eyes were gold-flecked as they caught the lamplight, and she
squeezed his fingers and moved away.

Hours later when she had gone to the door with him, he touched her arms
and drew her to him. She came against him willingly, her arms slid
around him, but she turned her head to avoid his kiss. She buried her
face against his shoulder, and he laid his cheek against her hair.

"Persia," he said, "I've known little in life except roughness. You
represent something that I didn't know could exist for me."

She pushed firmly away. "I've been a widow less than three months,
Jack. I've no right to listen to such talk. Not now."

Her face was faintly flushed, her eyes dancing. Her smile carried a
reprimand and a promise that was as old as womankind.

"You leave right now, _Mr._ Tesno," she said.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" he said.

"Yes!" she whispered. "Yes!"

She closed the door the instant he was over the threshold. He stood
there a long moment, sure that she, too, was waiting only inches away.
His fingers touched the doorknob, then fell to his side. He drew the
restless night air deeply into his lungs and walked into the darkness.

Off to the west, lightning shattered the sky, and the town leaped
fleetingly into being. Thunder pulsed distantly, and, swelling, rolled
into the gulch.




VII


Tesno circled the buckboard in the wide street and pulled it up
parallel to the hitchrail in front of the Pink Lady. Not liking his
errand, he swung slowly out of the seat and fussed over the tying of
the team.

As always, Tunneltown depressed him. Midnight closing was observed
now, but rather loosely. As far as he knew, only one gambler had been
invited to leave, and he, Tesno suspected, had been cheating the house.
Aside from a sarcastic quip or two about the council's half-hearted
progress in doing what it had agreed to do, Ben Vickers had said
nothing. But there were signs that his patience was nearing its end.

Tesno vaulted the hitchrail and moved toward the open doorway, the hum
and stench of the saloon setting his nerves on edge. A voice called his
name, and he found himself gaping at the figure approaching along the
boardwalk.

"Howdy," Whisky Willie Silverknife said. He was wearing a black vest
with a star pinned on it. He was grinning from ear to ear. The star
flashed mirror-bright in the afternoon sun.

"Howdy," Tesno said.

"I got me a d-d-deputy m-marshal job."

"I see. When did you start?"

"L-last night. Not that I arrested anyb-body yet."

"Madrid hire you?"

"Yes. Miss P-Persia had it all fixed." Willie frowned. "I d-don't
know how I'm going to get along with Madrid. I mean, he d-don't give
me instruction or anything. He says, 'Sit on your d-duff, d-draw your
p-pay, k-keep your mouth shut and your nose c-clean.' Mr. Tesno,
c-could I have a t-talk with you?"

"About what?"

"I want to l-learn this b-business of b-being a p-p-peace officer."

"I've got a chore to do right now," Tesno said. "How about tomorrow?"

"F-fine. I'm off d-duty in the morning."

Willie's hand slid around to his hip and came up with the flask he
carried there. It was filled with a colorless liquid, of which he took
a long swig.

"Lemon soda," he said, licking his lips. "Miss Persia says st-stammer
or not, a deputy can't go around nipping whisky all day."

He seemed to be completely serious, and Tesno suppressed a laugh. "Does
it work as well?"

"Miss Persia says it will. She says the important thing is to w-wet my
wh-wh-whistle."

_Persia hand-picked this kid for the job_, Tesno thought. _Why?_ He
said, "See you tomorrow," and pushed on into the saloon. He stood
blinking after the bright sunlight of the street, searching the big,
dim room till he spotted Vickers' general superintendant, Keef O'Hara,
who was seated alone at a back table behind a bottle and glass.

O'Hara was a tall, muscular man with wild gray hair and wild blue
eyes. When he was sober, he had an air of competence and of bouyant
energy that commanded respect. Now he sat slumped forward on one elbow,
slack-faced and limp.

"And what'll the trouble-man be wanting?" he said when Tesno
approached. "Surely it'll not be whisky with the dew still on the grass
and the sun scarce clear of the ridgetops. Only the Irish drink at this
hour."

"It's three in the afternoon, Keef," Tesno said. He pulled out a chair
and sat down across the table.

O'Hara sighed alcoholically and poured himself a fresh drink. "And
ye've come to sober me up for the night shift, eh, laddy-buck? I
might've expected it. What Ben Vickers can't do himself, he sets his
man to."

"Ben didn't send me, Keef. Far as he knows, you're asleep in your
cabin." Tesno extended a hand to restrain O'Hara from lifting his
glass. "Time to break it off now, get some coffee."

"I can stand another nip or two, lad." O'Hara slyly transferred his
drink to his other hand and sloughed it down. "Don't ye know I've been
working all night?"

"I know. You and a bottle. You're due back on the job in three hours,
and you've had no sleep."

O'Hara stared belligerently and reached for the bottle. Tesno beat him
to it and kept it out of his reach. The superintendant seemed about to
leap for Tesno's throat, then he was suddenly meek.

"Keef O'Hara a slave to the demon rum! 'Tis a sad end for a man."

"Keef, you've bossed tricky construction jobs all over the world. If
your skill was ever needed, it's here and now. You know what Ben's up
against. Now let's get out of here and sober up."

"Lad, why do you think I signed on with Ben Vickers?... For the
same reason half the terriers came up here. We're a breed apart,
lad--superintendant or shovel bum. We can't live with civilization.
We're boozers or fighters or skirt-chasers or wife-beaters or all of
those. Try to live in a town and we wind up in jail or sick or dead. So
we seek out a camp where there's work and good air and no temptation,
where a man can sweat off the blubber and save his pay and be at peace
with himself. And what did they do to us here amidst the wildest
mountains in the land? They built a town! A fine manner of town with
all the temptations...."

Tesno stood up impatiently. "We've finished with the preliminaries,
Keef. Now we're going back to camp."

O'Hara got to his feet, drawing himself up straight. His big frame
teetered and he almost fell. "I'll fight ye another day, Bucko," he
said. "When the spirits are better and I've not been the night on the
job."

He allowed himself to be led away.

At the far end of the bar a nattily dressed little man drained his
glass of buttermilk and dabbed at his beard with a silk handkerchief.
Pinky Bronklin removed the empty glass.

"J. Keef O'Hara," Mr. Jay said, tucking the handkerchief into his
breast pocket. "He's still the best engineer in the Northwest. I'll
wager he's the only man here who's had experience with compressed air
drills."

"Except you, Mr. Jay," Pinky said.

"Except me," Mr. Jay said.

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening Tesno had dinner with Persia, as he often did now. Sam
Lester was there, too, and he spent the whole time with them instead
of returning to his office when the meal was finished. He sat,
sipped brandy, read a newspaper; once in a while he even entered the
conversation. When they had moved into the parlor and were sipping
brandy, Persia mentioned that they had put on a new deputy.

"I know," Tesno said. "I'm wondering why you picked Willie."

"The council thought him suitable."

"He said you recommended him."

Persia shrugged. "He's a nice boy. He seems qualified."

"A breed kid who stutters?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's part Indian."

"He's not a reservation Indian. He's a citizen, and--"

"Then you did know," Tesno said.

"He doesn't look Indian," Sam put in. "He'll be all right if he keeps
his mouth shut."

"If you know him at all, you know he won't," Tesno said. "And that
bottle of lemon pop! Seems to me you went out of your way to pick a man
nobody will listen to."

"You wanted a deputy," Sam grumbled. "The town will be better
patrolled. Aren't you ever satisfied?"

"Never!" Persia said, laughing. "That's one of the things I like about
him." Her eyes sought his, and they were amused and affectionate and
possessive. "How about a game of three-handed euchre?" she said.




VIII


Tesno was rousted out of bed the next morning by Ben Vickers, who
had spent a good part of the night translating his troubles into
arithmetic. He was waving a sheaf of papers which recorded exactly how
bad things were going in terms of dollars and cents, mean feet, and
work days.

Among other things, the figures spelled out what everybody knew
already: with every day of hand drilling, the odds against the tunnel
being finished on time went up. The huge boiler necessary to the use of
compressed air still hadn't arrived at end of track. Even when it did,
there would be the slow and tricky problem of dragging it forty miles
into the mountains.

"What I want you to do is get down to Ellensburg and get on the
telegraph," Ben said. "Find out where that thing is. And on the way,
study the road. Figure out where the trouble spots are going to be.
Maybe we can save time by doing some grading, building a bridge or two."

Tesno agreed grumpily, wondering why Ben couldn't send somebody else.
When Ben had left, he dressed leisurely and went down to the restaurant
for a late breakfast. The thought of the long ride and several days
away from Tunneltown didn't appeal to him. He lingered for a time over
coffee and a cigar, wondering at his own reluctance to get started,
thinking that he might stop by and see Persia before he left.

He had returned to his room and was shaving when Whisky Willie came in.
Willie turned a chair around backwards and straddled it.

"That Madrid p-p-protects crooks," he asserted.

Tesno beat up a lather in his shaving cup. "For instance?"

"There was this feller b-bucking the t-tiger in the P-Pink Lady.
He called me over real polite and orderly and said the dealer was
double-dealing and that he could prove it by the case board. Before
you could say J-J-Jack R-R-Robinson, Pinky had him by one arm and a
barkeep had him by the other and he was out in the s-street. Nobody
paid any at-t-tention to me. I told Madrid about it. He cussed me and
said we leave the dealers alone."

"Which table was this?"

"S-second from the d-door. The d-dealer's name's Cardona."

Tesno stropped his razor vigorously. "A mechanic. He uses an odd-even
setup."

"A what?"

"I'll demonstrate," Tesno said. He waved the razor toward the
saddlebags that hung over the foot of his bed. "There's a pack of
cards in there. Get it and separate the odd cards from the even. This
afternoon we'll call on Mr. Cardona."

"What we g-g-going to do?"

"Not we, _you_. I'll show you the trick. Then you'll expose Cardona and
run him out of town. In order to pull it off you're going to have to be
well rehearsed. Got anything to do for an hour?"

"Not till three this afternoon. I'm on d-duty from then till eight in
the morning."

By the time Tesno finished shaving, Willie had the cards separated.
Tesno squared up the two packets and pressed their ends together,
interlacing the cards evenly.

"You shuffle like a dealer," Willie said.

"Not quite so well. A good mechanic can get a perfect dovetail. That
means the odd and even cards will alternate all the way through the
deck...."

       *       *       *       *       *

As it turned out, the marshal was among the players at Cardona's table
when Tesno entered the saloon. Pinky Bronklin gave Tesno an evil look
and sent the other barkeep to wait on him. Tesno ordered a cigar and
stood smoking it with his back to the bar, watching the game.

Madrid was standing behind the seated players. He was wearing the pink
shirt and a black bow tie. After a few turns, he won a bet on the
queen and placed another on the four. When this also came up a winner,
he played the ten.

He was playing only even cards, and Cardona was letting him win. It
seemed plain that he was onto the grift and was collecting a payoff.
_This is going to be interesting_, Tesno thought grimly.

The marshal collected another bet, cashed his checks, and dropped his
winnings into his pocket. He saw Tesno, nodded, and after an instant of
hesitation came over and joined him.

"Quitting while you're ahead?" Tesno said.

"A man can beat the game sometimes if he isn't greedy," Madrid said. He
signaled the barkeep. "How about the house buying a couple, cowboy?"

"Not for me," Tesno said.

The barkeep slid Madrid a bottle and glass, saying nothing. The marshal
muttered an obscenity about the man's surliness and poured himself a
drink.

Whisky Willie came in then. He walked straight to Cardona's table and
drew himself up importantly.

"Th-th-this is a c-crooked g-g-gug-game," he announced. He had a
terrible time getting the words out, and Tesno winced for him. The
players looked amused and then startled. Cardona, a little bald man
with a handlebar mustache, stood up. Willie went on doggedly, "I'm
c-c-closing it d-down. P-pick up your b-b-buhuh-bets."

"What the devil does he think he's doing?" Madrid said.

He slammed his glass on the bar and started for the table. Tesno
restrained him firmly with a hand on his shoulder. "Let's see what's on
the kid's mind," he said.

Cardona was speaking to Willie, his tone jocular. "You better take a
swig of that word medicine you carry and calm down."

Willie slapped the layout with his palm. "R-right n-now! This g-game is
closed, Cardona. And you'll be out of town in t-twenty-four hours or
you'll be in j-jail. P-pick up your b-b-bets, men."

"Hold it!" Madrid said, striding forward now. "This is an honest game,
kid. I told you that the other night. Now for--"

"The g-game is crooked!" Willie said. "I can prove it."

Cardona moved toward the card box, but Willie beat him to it and
slapped his hand over it. Madrid caught Willie's arm and tried to pull
him away, but Willie shook him off. Customers from other parts of the
saloon moved in to see the show. Madrid swore violently.

"Get out of here, kid! Clean out of the place," he said.

He stood with his jaw thrust forward, his pink-striped elbow bent as
his hand gripped the handle of his pistol. Tesno was suddenly close
behind him with one hand on Madrid's shoulder and the other on the
wrist of his gun hand.

"Let the kid make his play," Tesno said. His grip tightened as the
marshal started to pull away. "Go ahead, Willie."

"The cards in this deck alt-t-ter-n-nate odd and even," Willie
announced. He slid the top card out of the box and turned it face up.
It was an eight.

"The n-next will be odd." Willie turned a three. "The n-next,
even ... the next, odd." He turned a four and a jack. He went on,
calling another half dozen cards correctly.

The spectators stared in fascination, muttering ugly, barely audible
phrases. Tesno released Madrid. The marshal had no choice now but to
watch quietly as if he were as surprised as everyone else.

"This is a frame up!" Cardona asserted. "Somebody planted that deck!"

"You put it in the box your own self," a spectator snarled.

"You can s-see how it works," Willie continued. "If most of the money
happens to be on odd cards, the even ones c-come up winners. The dealer
can ch-change this any time he wants by d-double-d-dealing."

Willie brought a card out of the box and showed that it was a king.
Squeezing it between his thumb and finger, he slid a deuce out from
behind it. He dropped the cards on the table.

"Twenty-four hours," he said to Cardona.

"Marshal," Cardona said, appealing to Madrid, "I swear this is a trick.
You know I've always run an honest game. You--"

"You do like he says," Madrid said. "Get out of town."

One of the players suddenly dived over the table and crashed into
Cardona, falling to the floor with him. Madrid drew his gun and ran
around the table. Another player grabbed the cash box, dumped its
contents on the table and tried to preside over a fair distribution of
the money to Cardona's victims; but it was scramble and grab. The money
was gone by the time Pinky Bronklin got there, striking out in all
directions with a beer bottle.

Tesno pulled Willie out of the melee as the table collapsed, Pinky
Bronklin being among those who went down with it. Madrid had gotten
Cardona to one side and was standing in front of him, gun in hand. He
fired into the ceiling.

"Break it up!" he kept bellowing. "Break it up!"

Men began to hurry out of the saloon now, some with their hands full of
money. Several stopped to slap Willie on the back on the way.

"I'm for firin' the marshal and givin' you the job!" one said.

The last man on his feet was Pinky Bronklin. His nose was bleeding, and
he clutched his apron to it. He started for a small stairway at the
back of the saloon, then he saw Tesno and came close.

"You set this up," he said, lowering the apron from his blood-smeared
face. "I know you. I know you, Tesno."

Tesno threw back his head and laughed. He clapped Pinky on the shoulder
and spun him toward the stairway. "I'll make an honest man of you yet,
Pinky," he said.

Cardona followed Pinky up the stairs. Madrid holstered his gun and came
over. He was grinning, but his black eyes held Tesno's coldly. "I'll
take it from here. My job."

Tesno matched the marshal's grin. He touched Willie's arm and they
walked out of the saloon. Willie reached for the lemon soda.

"Whew! You th-think he'll f-fire me?"

"No chance of it," Tesno said. "Everybody in town would know the
reason. He's got to pretend he thinks you did a good job."

Willie laughed aloud. "I g-guess you're right."

"Right now this is more your town than his. But make one mistake and
the same men who slapped your back in there will talk against you. And
Madrid will land on you with both feet."

"I don't see why Miss P-Persia p-puts up with him," Willie said. "I got
no respect for the man."

"You'd better have. He has to play the politician now, but he belongs
to a special race that lives in a different world from other men. You
stay in this business, you'll learn to recognize them quick enough.
They are not only capable of killing, they not only enjoy it, they
_think_ in terms of it."

Willie took a moment to digest that. "I g-guess I see what you mean.
He's c-c-cougar-fast with that gun. And his first in-st-stinct is to
reach for it."

They had reached the hotel. Tesno clapped Willie on the shoulder and
halted in front of the doorway.

"I'm going to be in Ellensburg for a few days, Willie. You walk easy,
and stay alive. And stick to the lemon pop."

"I'm s-sick of the s-stuff."

"There's a favor you can do for me," Tesno said. "You know Ben's
superintendant, Keef O'Hara? He gets on the booze, and I've been
nursemaiding him. I'd like you to take over."




IX


Five nights later, Tesno returned, riding into the town shortly before
midnight. He dismounted wearily across the dark street from the Pink
Lady and entered the Big Barrel, needing a drink before going on to the
camp and getting Ben out of bed.

The saloon was smaller than the Pink Lady and crowded. He found a place
at the end of the bar, ordered cigars and whisky, and was immediately
joined by Willie, who had been in the street and had seen him arrive.
Tesno poured a drink, sniffed it, tasted it.

"You're still wearing the badge," he said.

"I just delivered Mr. O'Hara back to the j-job," Willie said. "He's
s-sure kept me busy."

"He left the job?"

"He d-does it every night. Sneaks into town to wet his wh-whistle, he
says. The first night you were away, he g-got soaked g-good. I had to
t-take him b-back in a wagon. Since then I b-been w-watching for him
and c-catching him before he's had more'n a couple of b-belts. I've
t-told every barkeep in town not to s-serve him, but most of 'em do
when I'm not around."

"Hell of a thing," Tesno said. He bit off the end of a cigar and held
a match to it. He wondered if Ben knew about Keef's boozing. "How you
getting along with Madrid?" he asked Willie.

"J-just the s-same. He c-closed two more games."

"Madrid did?"

Willie nodded.

"He's smarter than I took him for," Tesno muttered. "He's not going to
let you be the big duck in the puddle."

"I th-think Miss Persia t-told him to close those games," Willie said
thoughtfully. "Or S-Sam Lester. Madrid d-don't t-take a deep breath
unless somebody tells him. Anyhow, he and Pinky had a m-meeting with
Miss Persia and Lester the d-day after you left. Stella t-told me."

"Who really calls the tune, Willie? Sam or Persia? What does Stella say
about it?"

Willie frowned painfully. "It s-seems like there's s-somebody else.
S-somebody who t-tells them all what to d-do."

"Stella said that?"

"She says there's s-somebody mysterious whose name is never mentioned
when she's around. They c-call him 'Mr. You-know' or s-something like
that. Sam Lester c-contacts him, Stella thinks."

       *       *       *       *       *

Tesno found Ben sitting behind his desk in his nightshirt, sleepily
staring at a paper covered with figures. When he saw Tesno, he snatched
off his glasses and tipped back in his chair.

"You sure took your time. Is the news good or bad?"

"Bad." Tesno sank into a chair. "I telegraphed the boiler factory in
Connecticut as soon as I got to Ellensburg. Your damned boiler still
wasn't shipped yet."

Ben looked as if he had been struck. He got slowly to his feet. "Hadn't
been shipped!"

"I was on the telegraph for three days getting it straightened out. It
seems they had a wire a couple of weeks ago, signed with your name. It
requested that they hold up shipment till they got further word from
you."

Ben leaned heavily on the table. For a moment Tesno was afraid he was
going to collapse. Then he thumped his fist on the table, began to
swear, and they both felt better.

"Somebody deliberately tried to delay you, Ben. Who would it be?"

"How would I know?"

"Jay?"

"I don't know. I've heard he's shifty--but a stunt like that! If I
could pin it on him, I could get him blacklisted by every railroad in
the West."

"The message was sent from North Yakima, so I rode down there. The
operator had the original copy. It was printed in block letters on
plain paper. As he remembers, the man who brought it in was dressed
like a rancher or a cow hand."

Ben sank into a chair. He wagged his head sadly. "Is that boiler on the
way now?"

"It is."

"It'll be at least two weeks before it gets across the country," Ben
said. "Then we've got to drag it up here from the end of track."

Tesno extracted a thick fold of paper from his shirt pocket and began
to open it up. "Made a map of the supply road with the bad spots
marked. There are a dozen places where we'll have to use block and
tackle, Ben."

"I suppose we'll do well to make five miles a day," Ben said wearily.
"Even with twenty-horse teams.... This is going to be your kettle of
stew, Jack, from the time that boiler hits end of track till it's
unloaded at the portal."

       *       *       *       *       *

Tesno walked back to the town through the heavy darkness of the forest
road. Reaching the street and turning up the walk toward the hotel,
he had a glimpse of the townhouse a hundred yards away. Forgetting
that he was dirty and unshaven, he swung instinctively toward the soft
invitation of its lighted windows.

Sam Lester answered his knock and grumbled for him to come in. Persia
sprang up from the sofa to meet him, taking both his hands. They both
sat down. She looked him over possessively.

"Jack, it seems like ages. Was it a rough trip?"

"Lots of riding, not much sleeping."

Sam asserted petulantly that he was going to bed. He slammed the door
behind him as he stalked off to the other part of the house.

"I interrupt something?" Tesno asked.

"The usual evening overture," Persia said tiredly. "He thinks he's in
love with me. Friendship isn't possible. Why can't we be like--well,
you and me, for instance?"

"And how is that?"

They had never sat so close before. He touched her hand. She squeezed
his fingers and smiled. Then she withdrew her hand.

"I want to talk, Jack. Everything is going so badly. Income has fallen
off and my debts are just overwhelming. It seems that by trying to
clean up the gambling games we've given the impression that they are
all crooked. Play has fallen off terribly and...." She broke off
and smiled suddenly. "I keep forgetting that you're really the one
responsible for my troubles. I promise I shan't say another whining
word."

"Say all you like."

"Oh, Jack, it's such a ridiculous thing to be a woman!"

He took her hand again and reached across her and embraced her
shoulder. Their eyes met and she came against him and her lips were
warm and fervent. Far away in the other part of the building, a door
slammed and they were alone in the night and in the world.




X


Willie Silverknife sat in Tesno's room with eight slips of paper fanned
out in his hands. Tesno lounged on the bed with his hands behind his
head. Willie was doing the talking.

"This d-dealer don't fool around with anything so easy as that odd-even
arrangement. He can bring up any one he wants by shuffling the way you
showed me. I watched him for d-days and wrote down the cards as they
come up. I d-did it with a stub of pencil inside my c-coat p-pocket. I
g-got all eight arrangements here."

"And you figure to bust him."

"I'll p-prove the g-game is crooked by dealing out the deck and calling
every card--exact, not just odd or even. I figure to d-do it when the
place is crowded."

Willie tapped the papers into an even packet and buttoned them into a
shirt pocket. Tesno regarded the ceiling in silence.

"I wanted to ch-check with you," Willie said. "I want to be s-sure
there's nothing wrong with the way I got this s-studied out."

"It's a fine piece of studying. But hold off, Willie."

"Wh-why? If I show up another c-crooked g-game in the Pink Lady, it
ought to just about f-finish the p-place."

"Hold off," Tesno said irritably. "The town is running pretty
tame--compared to what it was."

"T-tame? You sh-should s-see what I s-see. Last night--"

"All right! But don't put on a show this time." Tesno swung his feet
off the bed and sat up. "Go to Pinky quietly and tell him to get shed
of that dealer. He probably doesn't know he's got a card mechanic
there."

"You know b-better than that!" Willie stood up and gripped the back
of his chair. "That Pinky never does anything honest if he can do it
crooked. That place is rotten as hell's swill b-bucket, and I should
th-think you'd be glad to s-see it go b-bust!"

Tesno got slowly to his feet and stretched. "I have no love for Pinky.
But he owns only a small chunk of that place."

Tesno threw an arm around Willie's shoulders and led him to the door.
"For the time being, Willie, keep your eyes open and don't stir up
trouble."

Willie turned in the doorway with hurt written on his face.

"I'll be d-damned if you don't sound exactly like M-Madrid!"

Tesno laughed and closed the door. Turning to the washstand, he soberly
regarded himself in the small square mirror above it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nobody ever knew exactly what happened that night or exactly who was
to blame. But it seemed clear that dynamiter Heinie Hinkleman got his
fuses fouled up and also that the foreman of the shoring crew was lax
about getting his men to safety. The heading crew got clear in plenty
of time and warned the bench gang on the way out; but when Heinie came
jogging along in his leisurely flat-footed way, half a dozen workers
were still putting up shoring. Heinie told them for cripes sake the
fuses were lit, and he herded them ahead of him toward the portal.

The fuses were cut for six minutes, he said, which would have been
more than enough time to get the hell out of there. But Heinie had
miscalculated for the first and last time in his career, and the blast
caught them before they had gone a dozen yards. Rock hurtled out of the
heading like shot from a gigantic gun barrel. An egg-sized splinter
caught Heinie in the back of the skull and buried itself in his brain.
Two of the others were dead when the dust cleared enough for rescuers
to get to them. The other four were carried out stunned and just a
whisper away from suffocation.

Dawn was flaring over the hills to the east when Ben Vickers reached
the scene, wild-eyed and half dressed. Keef O'Hara, who said he had
been over the mountain at the other portal, arrived a few minutes
later. Together, they questioned the heading crew, who were scared and
mad and eager to blame somebody. Heinie, one of them volunteered, had
lost two months' pay at faro that afternoon, which might account for
his mind not being on his work, even if he hadn't taken a few nips to
console himself.

This, along with the fact that O'Hara's breath would back off a
polecat, was enough for Ben. When he had seen the injured men to the
camp hospital and got the doctor's report, he summoned Tesno to his
cabin and read the riot act.

Except for some rump-blistering profanity, which got monotonous, Ben
spoke in a flat, controlled manner--which was a bad sign. Tesno sat
with his chair tipped back and listened.

Briefly, Ben said that he had jumping-well expected Tesno to
establish authority in Tunneltown and kick it into line, and Tesno
had jumping-well expected to do that, too, judging by the way he had
started out. But he had changed his mind and had left the clean-up to
the town itself, which was nothing but a jumping booze camp, and what
booze camp ever cleaned itself up? Nevertheless, Ben had kept hoping
for the best until this morning. With three men dead and another
probably dying, his patience had run out, and there jumping-well was
going to be a change....

"Now hold on," Tesno said, when Ben showed signs of running out of
wind. "You said you'd settle for regulation, and you're getting it.
It's come slowly, but--"

"Don't recite your list of half-butt improvements to me," Ben said. "I
know it by heart--right down to that stuttering clown of a half-breed
deputy, who has done his job a jumping lot better than you have, at
that!" Ben poked the tabletop with a forefinger. "And as for what
I said I'd settle for, I told you clearly that the gambling had to
go--all of it."

"Damn it, Ben, you blame the town too much. If that dynamiter hadn't
lost his stake at faro, he probably would have dropped it to some
bunkhouse sharp at poker."

"I'm not going to argue about it," Ben said icily. "I want the gambling
stopped. Altogether."

"That will close at least a couple of the saloons."

"That would break my heart," Ben said. "Now do I get it or not?"

Tesno stood up and sauntered toward the door. Anger, guilt, a sense of
injustice, rose in him and laid harsh words on his tongue, but he did
not speak them. He needed time to calm down, to think things out.

"You'll get it," he said through clenched teeth, "or you'll get my
resignation."

He put his back to Ben and trudged out of the cabin and through the
camp toward the town road. Dave Coons stepped out of one of the
bunkhouses and fell in beside him.

"Johnny Favery just died," Coons said.

Tesno closed his eyes briefly. "That's four," he said.

"He was just a kid," Coons said. "Just here a few months from the old
country. He had nineteen cents in his pocket."

"Hell of a thing," Tesno said.

"Can you tell me where the blame lies?" Coons said. "The men have a
right to know. So it won't happen again."

"Ask Ben."

"Thought I might get a straight story from you. O'Hara wasn't at the
west portal as he claimed, I know that. He was at the cookhouse trying
to sober up on coffee."

"No reason why he should be on hand for every blast," Tesno grumbled.

"Vickers is, during the day shifts. If O'Hara had been there, he
probably would have seen that Hinkleman had the fuses wrong. Even if he
hadn't, he'd have got that shoring gang out of there earlier."

"All right," Tesno said. "Blame O'Hara."

"I do blame the town. If it weren't so handy and so wild, O'Hara
wouldn't have been drunk and Hinkleman broke and upset."

Tesno made no reply. They had walked a little way along the forested
road, chilly and damply fragrant at this hour. "When are you going to
do something about the town, Jack?" Coons said, and abruptly turned and
headed back toward the camp.

Tesno lingered over eggs and coffee at a restaurant counter, then he
went to his room and stretched out on the bed. He wanted to be alone an
hour or so; after that, he wanted to see Persia. Her company would dull
the shock and ugliness of the accident, he told himself, and he would
be able to think clearly.




XI


Persia sat primly at the secretary which stood in a corner of her
parlor. She frowned, checked her addition. It was nice to have bank
accounts in three different towns, but she wished that just once they
would total as much as she had expected. The town was busier than it
had ever been and on paper she was making a good deal of money; but it
was all going to pay off Mr. Jay.

She shifted her chair to face Sam as he came into the room. He regarded
her as placidly as ever through his lenses, but she knew him so well
that she could sense a mild urgency about him.

"Mr. Jay is in my office," he said shortly.

"Oh?" Mr. Jay never visited the townhouse unless his business was very
urgent indeed. "Sam, is anything wrong?"

Sam moved his head negatively. "He has some instructions he wants to
give you personally. It's a simple matter, but he wants it done just
right."

They went at once to the office. Mr. Jay sprang up to take Persia's
hand in both of his. "Charming! More charming than ever!" he said,
throwing his head back to look her over. His alert little eyes danced
and his beard framed a smile as he devoted a second or two to looking
charmed. He led her to a chair as Sam slid into another. Mr. Jay stood
between them, hands clasped behind his back. He glanced from one to the
other and drew in his breath noisily.

"There are two men upstairs in Sam's rooms that I don't want seen
around town. They have been riding all night and are hungry. Now--"
Mr. Jay paused to smile crisply at Persia--"I want you to feed
them. Have your maid throw together a meal; soup, ham and eggs,
left-overs--anything that can be prepared quickly. You might say that
Sam has some old friends visiting him, something like that. Then you
or Sam take the food up to them--not the maid. In the meantime, Pinky
Bronklin will bring a bag of supplies here. These two men will take it
and leave. Their horses are tied out back."

Persia smiled faintly. "Aren't you going to tell me what nefarious
connivance I'm a party to?"

"Oh, it's underhanded," Mr. Jay said, "completely underhanded. If I
were suspected of being connected with it, my career would be finished.
But you'll guess it anyway, in the light of future developments; so
you might as well know now. Ben Vickers' big boiler reached Ellensburg
yesterday. He had a crew and a huge wagon waiting for it, so I expect
that by this time it's on the road. I--well, there's going to be an
accident."

"I wish now I hadn't asked," Persia said. "No one will be hurt, I hope."

"I certainly hope not."

"I don't like this, Mr. Jay."

"Of course not. I don't like it either."

"Does Vickers know the boiler's arrived?" Sam asked.

"Not yet, I think," Mr. Jay said. "My information is that his messenger
was delayed. I dare say that he will get word, though, before the day
is out. And I dare say he will send Mr. Tesno down there at once."

       *       *       *       *       *

Finding no comfort in the solitude of his room, Tesno left the hotel
and strolled aimlessly up the street. His big Raymond watch showed only
a little after eleven. He would wait till noon, he decided, before
dropping in on Persia.

He stopped at the new tobacco store and bought a handful of cigars.
Lighting one, he sauntered past the livery barn and up the slope behind
it. Most of the timber had been logged off here, and brush and ferns
were already claiming the ground. Finding a degree of solace in the
faint warmth of the sun, he pulled himself up on a stump and found he
had a view that drew him out of himself.

It was a cloudless day, and the range jutted its ragged vertebrae into
a sky as blue as a mountain lake. Below him, the town seemed a naked,
ugly fungus sprung newly from the earth. The camp, almost hidden by
pines, was less intrusive. Beyond the gulch, above it, the crisp black
arch of the tunnel scarred Runaway Mountain.

_Here it all is_, he thought, _spread out in front of me. I've either
got to become a part of it or get the hell out._ He tried to plan what
he would say to Persia. He would tell her flatly that the time had come
for the gamblers to go, he guessed. He would ask her to have Madrid
clear them out, all of them. If she stalled or refused--well, he would
do it himself. Or resign.

The townhouse lay off to his left, and he found himself staring at
it, thinking that she was in there somewhere, wondering what she did
with her mornings. He watched two men come out of the back of the far
part of the building, each carrying a small bundle. At this distance
he could tell little about them except that they must have come up
from the cattle country east of the mountains. One wore woolly chaps.
Both wore Stetsons and walked with the peculiar swagger of men in
high-heeled boots. They disappeared behind one of the outbuildings,
and when they came into sight again, they were mounted on horses. He
watched them ride eastward out of the gulch. He supposed they had come
to sell beef or hay, or on some such business, and he quickly forgot
them.

When his watch read almost noon, he started downhill, avoiding the
street and heading for the townhouse. Persia answered his knock,
smiling when she saw him. It wasn't the polite and pretty company smile
now but a special one, personal and tender, an eager doorway closed
quickly behind him as she came into his arms.

"I'm glad you came," she said. She drew him into the parlor.

"It's been a bad morning."

"I heard about the accident," she said. She detached herself from him
and sat down on the sofa, crossing her long legs and smoothing her
skirt over them. "Is there anything anyone can do?"

"Not for the dead men."

Her eyes touched him warily. She said, "For you then? You ought to get
your mind off it."

"No," he said. "I ought to think about it. I ought to think a great
deal about it."

She nodded slowly, frowning. He seized the back of a chair and leaned
over it moodily. After a moment, she said, "I've been wishing all
morning you'd drop by. Jack, it's such a beautiful day. Could we--I
suppose it isn't a good idea, but couldn't we pack a lunch and have a
picnic? I know a spot where there's a creek and a little waterfall.
We'd be a million miles away from everything."

"It sounds fine," he said.

"We'll have to sort of sneak away," she said. "I wouldn't want Sam to
know. He'd want to come, too, I'm afraid."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was after sunset when they came back into the gulch along a
forgotten skid road. They reached the kitchen door of the townhouse
at a remarkable moment when the entire sky was aglow, burning scarlet
beyond the bleak western peaks and cooling down to a grayish pink
in the east as night seeped into it. The buildings of the town, the
trees, the earth itself were suspended in a pinkish haze. Persia caught
Tesno's hand and halted him.

"It's almost frightening!" she said. "It gives you the feeling
something strange is about to happen."

He knew what she meant, but he grinned and said artlessly, "It will be
a clear day tomorrow."

Stella was at the back door then, saying dinner was ready and going
stale. Sam Lester met them in the kitchen. He gave Persia a questioning
look and turned to Tesno.

"Vickers is in there," Sam said, jerking his head toward the parlor.
"He's been combing the town for you. He finally learned from Stella
that you'd gone off somewhere with a basket of food--she didn't know
where. He's been camped in there ever since."

Tesno found Ben dozing in a chair. He leaped to his feet wild-eyed when
he heard his name.

"The boiler's on it's way up here!" Ben said. "It will move fast enough
until the road hits the mountains, and I expect it's damn near to Cle
Elum by now. If you ride all night, you can be there by dawn. Where in
the merry hell have you been?"

"Picnic," Tesno said.

"You could leave word where I could find you."

"I've been trying to think things out, Ben. I've decided to quit."

Ben clapped a hand to his forehead. "Not now! Not with that boiler down
there!"

"You could send somebody else."

"This job might need special talent, Jack. It just might be a dirty
one." Ben fell silent as Persia and Sam came into the room. He nodded
curtly at Persia. Suddenly he gestured violently and continued. "The
thing arrived yesterday. I had a crew standing by to unload it and
start it up here. A man left at once to bring me the news--should
have been here before daylight this morning. But he was overtaken by
a pair of toughs who beat him up, tied him to a tree, shot his horse.
He worked loose and walked eight miles in the middle of the night to a
ragcamp, where he borrowed another horse. He didn't get here till well
after noon."

"You think they did this just to delay the news?"

"Seems like it. And when you remember that phoney telegram--well, that
boiler needs you down there alongside of it, night and day, a gun in
your hands."

"All right," Tesno said. "I'll chaperone the boiler for you. After
that...."

"We'll see, we'll see," Ben said quickly. "Once I get that thing up
here and the compressors working, life ought to be a little easier for
everybody. I've got your blue roan saddled and waiting outside. You can
start right now."

"Not till he's had something to eat!" Persia said. She stepped up and
grasped Tesno's arm possessively.

Ben grunted. "Just so he's at Cle Elum by daylight." He located his
hat, clamped it on his head, and headed for the door. Sam Lester went
with him.

"Actually," Persia said, "I think that man is mad. Sit down and have a
drink, Jack. I'll have Stella get dinner on the table. Sam has already
eaten."

"I'll have to hurry," Tesno said. "Maybe...."

"Nonsense. Sam has work to do, and I refuse to be left alone. Not
tonight, Jack."




XII


The first dozen miles lay in relatively flat sagebrush country. The
twelve-man, thirty-horse boiler-hauling outfit covered them the first
day, reaching the first real grade at dusk and halting there to spend
the night and give the boss time to figure out what he was going to do
in the morning.

He was a glary-eyed man named Rejack, who treated his horses with
a kindness rare among teamsters and was consequently considered a
simpleton by his crew. His problem was to get his huge wagon over a
bridge almost exactly as wide as its wheel spread and then up a road
with hairpins in it so sharp and steep that the top-heavy load was
almost sure to overturn. He finally decided that it couldn't be done.
The only chance was to ford the creek and pull the wagon straight up
the hillside with block and tackle.

Shortly after sun-up, the crew dragged it across the creek without too
much trouble. Rejack then anchored his pulley block on a big cedar,
put six men on the wagon tongue to steer, and had ten span of horses
hitched to pull down-grade as the wagon moved up. He inspected the
teams, the rope, the lashings on the boiler and finally gave the order
to start. The wagon moved along nicely for the first hundred feet. Then
a man walked out of a clump of trees with a shotgun, aimed at the rope
from four feet away, and fired both barrels.

The wagon reversed its direction so suddenly that the man walking near
the rear of it with a wheel block had time only to toss it and jump.
The wheel missed it. The wagon hurtled down the hillside, skidded
sideways, made one complete roll, stopped abruptly in the creek, and
collapsed under its load like a berry box.

In the confusion, the man with the shotgun had disappeared into the
pines. Some of the crew considered going after him but were promptly
discouraged when a rifle cut loose from somewhere above, its bullets
ricocheting through the brush between them and the trees. It was plain
to everybody that the saboteur had a partner up there covering him.

Rejack took off his hat, scratched his head, and reacted to catastrophe
with casual acceptance that the crew later recounted with hilarity.

"If that isn't one hell of a way to cut a rope!" he grumbled. "Did any
of the buckshot hit the horses?"

The rifleman fired three rapid shots, obviously not trying to hit
anybody, and called it a day. Rejack jounced down the slope to inspect
the damage, followed by most of the crew. As far as anybody could tell,
the boiler, for a wonder, wasn't even scratched. The wagon was beyond
repair. Rejack sat down on the creek bank to figure out what to do next.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was midmorning and Tesno was five miles above Cle Elum when he met
the rider on his way to report the disaster to Vickers. Tesno would
have passed with a nod and greeting, but the other recognized him and
stopped to pour out the story.

"The boiler isn't damaged?" Tesno demanded.

"Sound as a dollar," the hard-faced little teamster said. "The boss
started back to Ellensburg to try and scare up another wagon big enough
to haul the damn thing. In the meantime it's setting in a crick about a
mile and a half below Cle Elum."

"Somebody's guarding it?"

"Well, yes. The boss ordered a four-man guard on it, but there didn't
seem much sense in that since there was only one gun in the whole
outfit. So one man's there now. The rest went on up to Cle Elum."

"All right," Tesno said. "Now the first thing you tell Ben is that the
boiler is in good shape. That might save him from apoplexy. Then tell
him I said not to worry. I'll get the thing up to him."

Guilt welled up in him as he jogged on down the road. If he had
left Tunneltown when Ben wanted him to--or even immediately after
dinner--he would have been on the scene when calamity struck. With a
little luck, he might have prevented it. At least, he would have bagged
the hooligan who severed the rope.

Cle Elum consisted of a sawmill, a pond full of logs, and one of the
temporary camps Ben Vickers had set up here and there along his supply
line. Tesno passed without stopping and rode on to the scene of the
wreck. Here he found the guard sitting against a tree sound asleep--a
sixteen-year-old kid armed with an ancient revolver with two shells in
it. He jerked the boy to his feet and shoved him toward the boiler.

"You keep your eye on that thing every minute," he snapped.

After questioning the kid about what had happened, he made a quick
scout through the pines and found where the vandal had tied his horse.
Following the hoofprints upgrade, he soon came to a place where they
were joined by another set. The two riders had headed straight into
the timbered hills without so much as a deer trail to guide them.
Apparently, they were men who knew the country well.

He rode back to Cle Elum then, where he found the boiler crew lounging
around the mess tent, sipping coffee and playing poker.

"Holiday's over," he announced. "We'll go down there and get the boiler
ready to load when the wagon arrives. We'll need about twenty horses to
drag it out of the creek."

"Morning will be time enough," a bull-necked, bullet-headed freighter
growled, clutching his poker hand close to his stomach. "You were sent
down here to guard that damn teakettle, not to give orders. Rejack left
me in charge, and I say you can go hang yourself. Where in the black
damnation were you when those rascals surprised us, anyhow?"

Tesno remarked that he was in no mood to quibble. Placing the sole of
his boot against the edge of the table, he kicked it into the man's
stomach, got an armlock on him, and pitched him out of the tent on his
face. The crew laughed uneasily and drifted off toward the corral to
get harness on the horses.

After several hours of preparatory work, they maneuvered the boiler out
of the creek on logs that had been peeled and greased. When they had
skidded it onto two logs set along the bank like rails, they dug a cut
under one end of these for the wagon to back into when it arrived. It
was dark when they finished.

In the meantime, Tesno borrowed a Winchester from the camp 'general'
at Cle Elum and another from the mill owner. He also found a Klickitat
mill hand who knew the country and whom he set off on horseback to
trail the saboteurs.

When the digging was finished and the boiler ready to load, Tesno
announced that they would camp on the spot. He divided the men into
pairs and assigned them to watches.

"Just don't get jumpy and shoot each other," he said, handing the
rifles to the men on the first watch. "If you see or hear anything
unusual, let me know. I'll be within calling distance all night."

Supper consisted of stew made of bacon, jerky, onions, and potatoes,
chased by black coffee. When he had wolfed his down, he settled himself
at one end of the boiler with a blanket over his shoulder and his own
rifle beside him. From time to time, he rose to check on the guards,
but mostly he sat and smoked, dozing very little.

He was restless and uncomfortable, his supper heavy in his stomach,
and his thoughts were like a windblown deck of cards he tried to sort
out and put in order. He looked back at his life, at the callousness
of it, the probing out of human weakness that could be turned to his
advantage, the careful building of a reputation among the contractors.
What had he been seeking all these years? Money? A stake that would
buy and stock a ranch? Of course. But there had been more to it than
that. There had been the satisfaction of seeing steel push into the
wilderness. Even if he sometimes had doubts about the true importance
of the railroad, it had been something a man could give his life to. It
was the giving that had been important.

And now it was not important. Not since that long-ago night in May when
he had interrupted Persia Parker's dinner. Gray-green eyes, a soft
voice, an eager smile, a lithe body--these were Persia. But what else
was she? And in this black and lonely time with his back against the
cold bulge of a boiler that was a key piece in a wild game of steel and
gold, he dared to doubt the thing he wanted most. To doubt in order to
prove. He had to know.

There had been a nervousness in her last night, he thought. She
had smiled even more often than usual, had touched him at every
opportunity, as she had stubbornly insisted that he stay with her. She
had known about the boiler, of course; she had been there when Ben
told him of its arrival. But could she have known earlier--before the
picnic? _No_, he told himself, _it wasn't like that. It couldn't have
been...._

A voice rang out in the blackness, a challenge, and another answered
bluntly. Tesno was on his feet, working the lever of his rifle. Two
figures up in the liquid forest night--one of the guards with his gun
on the Klickitat mill hand.

"It's all right," Tesno said to the guard. "Go back to your post."

The Indian, who answered to the name of Muckamuck Charlie, gave his
report in a mixture of reservation English and Chinook jargon.

"Them son-of-a-gun _cooley_ over mountain. Split up. One come back to
_hooihut_. _Nika till._ You got whisky?"

"One of them circled back to the road?" Tesno said, trying to get it
straight.

"Damn right. Maybe go by here, take look. _Halo nika_ money. You pay
now?"

"Where did the other one go?"

"_Halo chako._ Him wait. By and by come together. Go to _tenas_ house
_ipsoot_ in woods." Charlie made a gesture toward the southwest.
"Four-five mile."

As near as Tesno could make it out, one of the men--no doubt the one
who had shown himself--had waited while the other rode up the road like
any honest traveler, passing the boiler to see how much damage had been
done. This could have happened soon after the smash-up, likely as not
while that sleepy kid was on guard. Then the pair had joined up again
and ridden to a cabin hidden in the woods four or five miles away.

"They're at the cabin, _tenas house_, now?"

"I listen," Charlie said. "They make sleep noises. I smell whisky."

"Can you take me there? Right now?"

Charlie grunted. "You pay now. Two dollar. We go _tenas house_, you pay
more."

Tesno drew two silver dollars from his pocket and passed them over.
"Two more when you take me to the cabin."

Charlie studied the coins in his palm. "_Nika till._ I sleep now. Eat.
Drink some whisky. Pretty soon daylight. We go then."

"We go right now," Tesno said.

As it turned out, they were delayed by the arrival of Rejack, who came
rumbling up the road with a new freight wagon as Tesno was saddling his
horse. He inspected the boiler and then backed the wagon into the cut
by lantern light before he unhitched the team.

"We'll be loaded and moving by sun-up," he said, looking pleased.

"No," Tesno said. "Load, but don't start the boiler up that grade till
I get back. Those rascals know it wasn't damaged, and if I should
happen to miss them, they might try the same stunt all over again."




XIII


Dawn crept into the world drearily and then lavishly as they made a
slow and sinuous ride through tangled gulches and trailless forest, up
horse-crippling grades and down shale-slippery slopes. After a good
hour of this roundabout traveling, Muckamuck Charlie halted at the foot
of a rounded, thickly timbered hill. He sniffed the air and announced
that the _tenas house_, the cabin, was on the far side of this.

"Them son-of-a-gun wake up," he said, sniffing again. "Cook breakfast.
When we gonna eat?"

As they wound up through the trees, Tesno, too, could smell smoke. When
they were over the crest, had tied the horses and were proceeding on
foot, it was visible, lying in motionless layers among the pines.

"Fire out now," Charlie said.

They were within a few yards of the cabin before Tesno saw it through
the foliage, a ten-by-twelve log shack set into the hillside. It was
weathered and saggy-roofed, built by some trapper or prospector heaven
knew how many years ago.

Charlie drew Tesno behind a tree, pointed a finger at the ground as an
indication that he was to wait, and angled off on a scout. After a few
minutes he walked around the end of the cabin, eating a biscuit with a
piece of raw bacon draped over it.

"Them son-of-a-gun wake up early. Go 'way," he said.

The air in the dark interior of the cabin was still warm from a fire
in the crumbling clay fireplace. It had been doused with water but was
still smoking faintly. The occupants couldn't have left more than a few
minutes earlier. Gear and supplies piled along the walls indicated that
they expected to be back.

Charlie led the way down the hillside to a little open place where they
had picketed their horses. After circling around and studying several
old sets of tracks, he announced that he had found the fresh one.

As he and Charlie strode upgrade toward their own horses, Tesno grew
increasingly anxious. This pair of hooligans knew that the boiler
wasn't damaged. It stood to reason that they would make another try at
it. He said as much to Charlie.

"You keep on their trail, Charlie. Try to get a look at 'em. I'll be
with the boiler. If they come anywhere near it, you let me know. You
got all that?"

"Two dollar," Charlie said.

"Five dollar, Charlie. Five dollar, you stay with 'em till I catch 'em."

       *       *       *       *       *

Rejack had the tackle rigged, the teams hitched, and was impatient to
begin the haul. Tesno had him wait till he had scouted out the pine
clusters that dotted the lower part of the hillside, then told him to
go ahead. The wagon groaned and inched upward. Two men walked behind it
now, swinging a squared timber on ropes between them. They held this
close behind the wheels so that they had only to drop it to block them.
Rifle in hand, Tesno took a position where he could cover the rope on
both sides of the tackle blocks.

Slowly, protestingly, the great wagon and its monstrous load crept up
to the anchor tree and was lashed to it. Rejack had already chosen the
course for the second leg of the ascent and had had brush and saplings
cleared away. This would be a longer haul than the first. There were
two or three trees that the men on the tongue would have to guide the
wagon around, and the slope was uneven, mottled with rock outcroppings.
Moreover, the forest pressed in from both sides before claiming the
top of the hill entirely, just beyond the place where the wagon would
rejoin the road.

"If they'd waited yesterday and hit us up here, there wouldn't be
enough left of the boiler to hold a drink of water," Rejack said.

Tesno scouted the trees as best he could. But this was deep woods.
A wary man could easily avoid being seen or heard among the maze of
trunks growing out of carpetlike duff.

Again, the long double file of horses pulled slowly down the
mountainside and the wagon groaned upward. It had climbed barely twenty
yards when Muckamuck Charlie appeared below, working his horse zigzag
up the slope. Tesno yelled for the team to halt and the men behind the
wagon to block its wheels.

Charlie slid off his winded horse. "Them son-of-a-gun close by," he
grunted. "They watch."

"Where?" Tesno demanded.

They moved a few steps into the woods. Charlie pointed to a little
butte that rose out of the pines half a mile to the west. Its face was
sheer rock cliff, but it could well have a sloping approach on its far
side.

"They go up there," Charlie grunted. "_Halo chako._ Wait. Watch. By and
by one go 'way. Come down here someplace. One stay."

Tesno squinted thoughtfully up at the butte. "You get a look at 'em,
Charlie?"

"Damn right. Jim Palma. _Cultus_ no good son-of-a-gun."

"You know 'em?"

"Know one," Charley said with stubborn serenity. "Jim Palma. Stomp
Umatilla boy down to Selah, one-two year ago. Boy die. Don't know other
one."

Rejack came trotting through the trees and demanded to know what was
going on. "Maybe we ought to back the thing down, lash it to that
cedar," he said when Tesno had explained.

Tesno considered this, then shook his head. "Go ahead with the haul.
Let them make their try. Just be sure those boys with the wheel block
are on their toes. If--"

A rifle shot rang out from the butte, not much louder than a finger
snap, and a ricochet screamed its weird song above them.

"Damn fool," Rejack muttered. "He's giving us a warning. I don't get
it."

The rifle cracked again, and now a horse whinnied, plunged in his
harness, went down.

"My god," Rejack gasped. "He's shooting at the horses!" He dashed out
of the woods, waving his arms and yelling to get the team to cover. As
he did so, another shot sounded, and another horse plunged and went
down.

Tesno studied the butte, estimating that its top was at least six
hundred yards away. Even at that range, it didn't take an expert to
hit a twenty-horse team. As he watched, a man stepped into sight at
the very brink of the cliff, fired a quick shot which hit nothing, and
disappeared into brush and scrub timber.

"Jim Palma," Muckamuck Charlie grunted.

"He didn't have to show himself," Tesno muttered. He began to
understand the plan now.

Another shot rang out. A horse screamed and started to buck, a
brilliant red streak across his rump. Rejack barked orders and waved
his arms as teamsters jumped around frantically, trying to quiet down
the horses and unhook the harness of those that were down. The men who
had been posted on the wagon tongue to steer now were streaking up the
slope to help with the animals.

Jim Palma could sit up there and pot horses till confusion reigned
completely, Tesno thought. But of course, the man had an additional
purpose. He meant to draw whoever was guarding the boiler up there
after him to give his partner a chance to strike. He stepped into the
open to fire a quick shot again now. And this time Tesno was ready for
him with his rifle rested against the trunk of a tree. He aimed and
fired. Palma faded from sight.

"You gottem!" Muckamuck Charlie said.

"I doubt it," Tesno said. "Not at this distance. But he knows we've
seen him. Let's go, Charlie."

He hurried down to his horse, mounted, and joined Charlie at the road.
They rode down it a few yards and were out of sight of the butte.

"You keep after him," Tesno said, waving Charlie on as he reined off
the road. "I'll maybe catch up to you later."

Palma's partner would certainly have been watching, would have seen
them leave and would assume they had been decoyed after Palma. He would
make his move now--any second, Tesno thought as he worked his horse up
through a stand of trees toward the suspended wagon. When he came to
more open ground, he dismounted and continued afoot. Within a hundred
yards of the wagon he knelt in brush cover.

He waited, wondering why Palma's partner didn't make his play. Then he
realized that the man would wait for the horses to be unhitched and
moved to cover so the rope would have only the weight of a doubletree
at its end. There would be only the wheel block to deal with.

The shooting from the butte came rapidly now, badly aimed. The crew
frantically untangled harness and ran the horses into the woods in
pairs. Tesno kept his eyes on the wagon. Only the wheel blockers were
left with it, and they were standing together watching the pandemonium
above them.

A man was suddenly crossing the hillside a few yards from the rear of
the wagon. He was a lean, quick-moving man in woolly chaps, and he
carried a shotgun. His appearance was so sudden that he could only have
been lying in the brush there, not far above Tesno.

He barked something at the pair near the rear of the wagon, covering
them with the shotgun as they turned. He gestured with the gun toward
the wheel block. The men hesitated, then one stooped to remove it.

"Hold it!" Tesno yelled. "Drop the gun!"

He fired as the man whirled toward him. A sickening weakness seized him
as the man flounced and the shotgun discharged wildly at the sky. The
boiler-wrecker rose on his toes and pitched forward on his face. The
man who had stooped over the wheel block straightened without touching
it.

Tesno walked swiftly up the hillside, reaching the scene as the crewmen
rolled the body on its back.

"He was dead when he hit the ground," one of them said weakly.

Tesno studied the gaping, vacant face, the blood-stained denim shirt,
the shaggy, stained chaps. Here was the end of a life. However shabby,
there must have been good in it somewhere, he thought, and regret
seized him like a sickness. Yet he hid it, denied it, and as men
gathered round he said roughly, "Anybody know him?"

Nobody did. Tesno continued to stare, frowning. The limp, long-legged
form stirred a slippery memory that he couldn't quite get hold of.

A bullet rang dully against the boiler, spattering harmlessly against
the heavy iron. An instant later, the bark of the distant rifle reached
them.

Tesno motioned to the men to move around the boiler so it would shield
them from the rifleman. As he did so, another bullet made a little
explosion of dust two yards below him. He turned his eyes toward the
butte and said, "He saw what happened. He's out for blood now."

Rejack bustled up, red-faced and wild-eyed with anger. He took a quick
look at the dead man and seemed to grow calmer. He said, "We can't
hitch up till that murdering devil stops shooting. Aren't you going
after him?"

"I think I know where he'll head for," Tesno said. "I can get there
first, I guess. Maybe I can take this one alive."

He strode down-grade to his horse and headed over the hill in the
direction of the hidden cabin. He followed the same course he and
Charlie had taken that morning, annoyed at its tedious winding and
thinking that there might be a shorter way.

When he was near the cabin, he hid his horse well back in the woods and
approached on foot.

Everything was just as he had left it. He closed the door behind him
and sat down to wait, rifle on his knees. His lack of sleep caught up
with him now, and several times in the space of a few minutes he got
up to stretch and move about to ward off drowsiness. He couldn't get
the dead man out of his mind. He was reasonably sure he had never seen
the face before; yet something about that figure sprawled out on the
hillside nagged him.

His eye fell on two canvas bags of supplies resting against the wall.
And it all came to him then. Two bags of supplies. Two men. One in
woolly chaps. The dead man and Jim Palma were the pair he had seen come
out of the back of the townhouse two days ago! It seemed a long guess,
on the face of it; yet he was sure.

_All right_, he told himself. _They came out of the far end of the
building, the office end. That means that Sam Lester is involved, not
Persia._

But why Sam? What did he have to gain by wrecking Ben Vickers' boiler?
A little longer life for the town, no doubt. But Persia would profit
by that as much as Sam. And it was after the men had left that she had
suggested a picnic....

There was the soft sound of hoofs outside. He rose and moved quietly to
one side of the door. A saddle creaked as a man dismounted. The door
was pushed quietly open.

"You here, Boss?" Muckamuck Charlie asked.

Tesno groaned and stepped forward. "Where's Palma?" he demanded.

Charlie stepped into the cabin, looking past Tesno at the canvas bags.
"_Cooley tenas house._ Come this way. See you _elip siah_. Far ahead.
Watch. You come to cabin. Him go 'way."

Charlie pushed past and began to rummage in the bags. He extracted a
can of beans and held it up admiringly. "Bullet hittum," he said.

"Hit who?"

"Jim Palma. You shoot. Hittum."

"I couldn't have," Tesno said. "He went right on shooting at the
horses."

"_Pil-pil._ Him bleed. Maybe just scratchum. You catch other one?"

"He's dead."

Charlie nodded approvingly. He produced a hunting knife from somewhere
under his coat and jabbed the blade into the can of beans. He pried
back the metal untidily, poured out a handful of beans and tasted them.
He drew another can out of the bag and shoved it into a coat pocket.

"We'll go after Palma," Tesno said. "You find trail?"

"Damn right," Charlie said.

Eating beans as he rode, Charlie found the trail a few minutes later.
It wound down one gulch and up another, over the spur of a mountain and
back through still another gulch.

"Where's he headed, Charlie," Tesno asked finally.

"No place. Him know country. Work into mountains. Maybe by and by go
back to _tenas house_, get food."

A little later the tracks led into a shallow creek and disappeared.
After several minutes of scouting, Charlie announced that Palma had
gone upstream.

"Him know we follow," he said. "Maybe wait, shoot you."

Tesno nodded. There were a dozen places for an ambush every way you
looked. He grinned. "Maybe miss me. Hit Charlie."

For the first time since Tesno had known him, Charlie grinned. "_Cultus
he-he_," he said, reining upstream along the bank. "Bad joke."

Tesno laughed and followed, grateful for the luck that had provided his
guide. Here in this brutal and majestic wilderness the ten thousand
years between white civilization and savagery had no meaning. He and
Charlie were just two hunters, friends now, following a trail. It was
going to be a rough one, but Muckamuck Charlie would do to ride it
with.




XIV


Pinky Bronklin unlocked the door of the storeroom on the second floor
of the Pink Lady, lighted a candle, and went in. Pushing a wooden
box close to a tier of cluttered shelves, he climbed up to examine
an array of bottles on the top one; carbolic acid, cough syrup, Dr.
Partrey's Male Restorative and Blood Tonic, toothache remedy, Princess
Cleopatra's Egyptian Love Stimulant, iodine, linament.... He selected
a small blue bottle without a label, uncorked it, sniffed it. Holding
it delicately in his crab-claw of a hand, he dribbled two drops into a
shot glass. Two drops was the dose. It would hit quick, put a man out
for hours. Pinky tipped the bottle again and added three more.

Climbing down from the box, he inserted the shot glass into one of the
special pockets sewn to the back of his bartender's apron. There were
two of these, a small one inside a larger one. The small one was just
the size of the doped glass and held it upright. You took a glass from
the back bar and pretended to polish it on the apron. What you really
did was drop it into the large pocket and bring out the doctored glass.

Pinky snuffed the candle, locked the storeroom door, and went back down
to the bar. It was the busiest part of the night with a fair crowd at
the bar and a nice little business at the tables. Pinky motioned to the
other two bartenders to move down and began to work the back end of the
bar.

After a few minutes, Pete Madrid came in and had a drink. As usual, he
didn't pay.

"You sure he'll come in?" Madrid asked, keeping his voice down.

"No, I'm not sure," Pinky said irritably. "How can I be sure? But he
almost always does. You got that crazy Willie out of the way?"

"Gave him the night off."

"Only thing is, Mr. O. might go to the Big Barrel. They serve him in
there in spite of Willie told 'em not to."

Madrid pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I'll drop in there," he said.
"I'll see that they give him a couple of drinks and then cut him off.
That'll bring him over here."

Pinky's eyes followed Madrid as he sauntered to the door, his blue
silk shirt shimmering in the lamplight, his fingers touching the ivory
handle of his low-slung gun with every step. A dangerous man to have
for an enemy, Pinky thought--and maybe dangerous to have for a friend,
too. Not what you'd call a bright man, he was sure of his ability to
kill, and of not much else. He needed somebody else to do his thinking
for him, even about small matters, and so far he had seemed to realize
this. _God help us if he ever starts thinking for himself_, Pinky mused.

Half an hour later, Keef O'Hara showed up, and Pinky sighed inwardly.
He didn't much like what he was going to do to O'Hara; but Mr. Jay
wanted it done, and it would be. O'Hara came directly to Pinky's end of
the bar.

"Slip me a pint, ye black scoundrel," he said, "before Deputy Willie
catches up to me."

"I hear Willie's off duty tonight," Pinky said. O'Hara must have
visited the Big Barrel first, he thought. The big Irishman had had a
drink or two.

"Willie off duty?" O'Hara looked alarmed. "First time that's happened."

Pinky took a glass off the back bar and appeared to polish it on his
apron. "It's a night to celebrate," he said. He made the switch and set
the glass in front of O'Hara, along with a bottle.

O'Hara looked uncertainly at the table in a far corner where he usually
did his drinking. "Sure, if I've got the sense God gave geese, I'll
walk out this minute while I've still got the use of my legs. Give me
that pint, Pinky m'lad, and I'll be gone. With Willie off duty, I don't
trust myself in this den of iniquity."

Pinky looked under the bar and shook his head. "I got no pints out
here. Have to get one from the back room. Sit yourself down, Mr.
O'Hara, and I'll bring it to you."

As he left the bar, he saw with relief that O'Hara was filling the
glass. He entered the small downstairs storeroom and watched from its
dark interior as the Irishman sloughed down the drink and then another.
O'Hara looked vacantly around the saloon, started for a table, and just
barely made it. He sat for a few seconds with his head in his hands,
then slumped forward with his face against the tabletop.

Pinky returned to the bar with a pint of whisky in hand. Nobody was
paying any particular attention to O'Hara. Pinky gave him a glance and
stowed the pint under the bar. "I guess he ain't going to need that,"
he said loudly.

He busied himself with the customers, apparently giving no more thought
to the unconscious O'Hara. After a few minutes, he consulted a watch
that lay on the back bar. "Fifteen minutes to closing time, gents," he
announced, chuckling. "Official closing time, that is. I reckon we'll
run a bit over tonight."

There was a low cheer of approval from the customers in the immediate
vicinity. Pinky stared past them at O'Hara, making a little show of it.
"Still here," he muttered and walked around the end of the bar.

He shook O'Hara, spoke to him, shook him again. Finally, he gestured to
a couple of the men who were watching.

"Give me a hand, boys, and we'll tote him upstairs to my room, lay him
on my bed."

The bystanders set down their glasses and came over. Pinky helped them
lug two hundred pounds of sagging Irishman up the narrow stairway. They
took him to the large room that served Pinky as living quarters and
laid him on the bed. Pinky lighted a lamp, turned it low. He muttered
something about the need for air and opened a window wide.

"He's a nice gentleman," Pinky said. "Just drinks too much sometimes."

"He sure musta took on a hell of a load this time," one of the
assistants said. "He don't even move."

"He'll sleep it off," Pinky said. He herded the men back downstairs
and bought them a drink, secure in the knowledge that O'Hara wouldn't
move for hours.

       *       *       *       *       *

Whisky Willie woke and sat erect, panicked by the thought that he
should be on the job. Then he remembered that Madrid had told him
to take the night off, and he sank back with a sigh. A sixteen-hour
night shift caught up with you, all right. You could doze a bit in the
marshal's office between rounds, but that kind of sleep didn't do a man
much good.

Now, however, sleep failed to return. His room was above the stage
office, smack in the middle of town, and the sounds of the saloons
drifted up through his window. He consulted his watch and saw that it
was after closing time. Peeved, he went to the window and leaned out.
All the saloons were still showing lights. The piano in the Pink Lady
was jangling merrily. Well, he decided, he wasn't going to make a fuss
about it. He would close the window and.... His train of thought was
interrupted by the sight of the mule at the Big Barrel hitching rack.
O'Hara was down there, somewhere. He would be soused to the gills by
this time, no doubt. Somebody had to see that he got back to the job.

Willie dressed quickly and went down to the street. O'Hara wasn't in
the Big Barrel, although a bartender said he had been in earlier.
Willie gave orders to close up and crossed the street to the Pink
Lady. As he pushed through the batwings, Madrid came clumping up the
boardwalk and called to him.

"What the hell?" he said, following Willie inside. "I gave you the
night off so you could catch up on sleep."

"I'm l-looking for Mr. O'Hara," Willie said.

"That whisky-head engineer? I'll keep an eye out for him. You get your
tail into bed."

Willie surveyed the line at the Pink Lady bar. O'Hara wasn't there. He
wasn't at any of the tables. Willie turned and walked into the street.

Madrid ambled up to the bar and beckoned to Pinky. "You better close
up, pronto."

Willie checked the Silver Slipper and then the Western Star. O'Hara
was at neither one. Pausing in the shadows, he watched Madrid saunter
down the street to his office. Willie had a growing conviction that
something was wrong and that the marshal knew what it was.

The Pink Lady was closing, and little knots of men straggled out of
it, making their way to other saloons or toward the road back to camp.
Willie stopped several men and asked if they had seen O'Hara. Finally,
he found one who had.

"Hell, he's at the Pink Lady," the man said. "He passed out in there.
Bronklin and some others carried him upstairs."

By the time Willie reached the Pink Lady it was locked and dark. He
rattled the door and got no response. He made his way round in back and
had no better luck at the door there. There was a light in an upstairs
room, and the window was wide open. Willie cupped his hands to his
mouth to call but something warned him not to.

He ran back to the street, crossing it to the Big Barrel, where
O'Hara's mule still stood at the hitch rail. He untied the animal,
mounted, and rode back to the alley behind the Pink Lady. Shadows
crossing the lighted window told him that somebody was moving around up
there. Gently, he worked the mule close to the wall, directly under the
window. He carefully knelt and then stood in the saddle. This brought
the windowsill within reach. He grasped it, and as quietly as possible
he pulled himself up.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the last customer was out of the Pink Lady and the bartenders were
washing glasses and tidying up, Pinky checked in the dealers. Each
brought his cash in a canvas bag, which Pinky stowed into the heavy
safe under the back end of the bar. First thing in the morning, Sam
Lester would be in to count up.

Pinky unbarred the heavy front door to let the dealers and bartenders
out, then he swung this closed behind the batwings and slid the bar
into place. Alone now, he returned to the bar, tipped up a bottle and
took a long drink. He picked up a lamp, the last light in the place,
and trudged up to his room.

Keef O'Hara was breathing raspingly. He hadn't moved an inch, and Pinky
chuckled softly at the potency of those knockout drops. Setting down
the lamp, he moved to the end of the bed and took off O'Hara's shoes.
This was a perfectly natural thing to do for a drunk you were taking
care of, he assured himself. If the drunk happened to get crazy ideas
in the night and wander around and fall out a window and be found with
no shoes, well, nobody could criticize the man who had tried to make
him comfortable.

Pinky edged around to the side of the bed and rolled O'Hara off it on
his face. Dragging so big a man to the window and stuffing him through
it was going to be heavy work, but he guessed he could manage it.
First, though, there was the other matter to be taken care of. A man
falling from a second story window might injure himself quite a bit,
but you couldn't quite count on it.

"I don't want him killed," Mr. Jay had said. "There's no need for that.
But I want him knocked off that job. Vickers' doctor isn't equipped
to deal with anything complicated and he ships bad cases off to the
Ellensburg hospital. That's where I want O'Hara to go."

Mr. Jay had gone on to explain that it would take weeks for Ben Vickers
to find another man who knew how to set up a compressed-air operation
properly. Well, you had to hand it to Mr. Jay for seeing a thing
through. Soon as he got word that his hired hooligans had failed to
wreck the boiler, he had come up with this plan to knock O'Hara off the
job. A smart, smooth operator, Mr. Jay. A good star to hitch your wagon
to. Only Pinky wished he hadn't looked so tired and upset....

Pinky made a trip to the storeroom and came back with a two-foot length
of iron pipe. He bent over O'Hara's feet, feeling the bones around
the ankles. It wouldn't take much of a blow to break some of these.
Two broken ankles plus any injuries that might be caused by the fall
ought to put O'Hara in that Ellensburg hospital for a good long time.
Probably be a good thing for the man, too, when you came to think about
it. Keep him off the booze.

Pinky slipped his claw of a hand under one of O'Hara's heels and lifted
the foot. He raised the pipe over his head, and he about jumped out of
his skin as a voice rang out behind him.

"Hold it, you b-bastard!"

Whisky Willie had one leg over the windowsill. Pinky flung the length
of pipe. He flung it backhanded and it caught Willie on the shoulder as
he dived into the room, falling flat. The pipe crashed to the floor and
rolled toward Pinky, who scrambled after it. Willie reached a chair,
flung it against Pinky's shins, and bounced to his feet. Pinky stumbled
forward, reached for the pipe. Before he could get his balance, Willie
was on him, knocking the pipe aside and aiming a blow at Pinky's head
with the only weapon he carried. The bottle of lemon pop caught Pinky
neatly behind the ear and dropped him like a bundle of rags.




XV


Judge Badger, who kept the general store and acted as town magistrate
on the side, was tall, bespectacled, and busy-browed. He gave the
impression of being a thoughtful and scholarly man, which he was not.
He was, however, reasonably honest. Consequently, as Mr. Jay pointed
out to Pete Madrid, he was not to be trusted. He was to be managed
rather than conspired with.

This morning he entered the small townhouse courtroom and took his seat
with great dignity. He surveyed the half dozen persons present and
addressed himself to the marshal.

"Pete, what in tunket is this all about?"

"The marshal's office is guilty of an embarrassing mistake," Madrid
said, reciting the words as if he had memorized them carefully. "As you
know, I have an inexperienced deputy. Last night he...."

"If you made a mistake why don't you correct it?" the judge demanded.
"Why waste the time of this court?"

Madrid pointed at Willie with his thumb. "Because this mule-head won't
admit it. He insists on this hearing."

The judge turned sternly to Willie.

"I want P-Pinky B-Bronklin ch-charged and t-tried," Willie said.

"Charged with what?"

Willie told what had happened the night before. The judge asked a
question or two and then told Pinky to tell his side of it.

Protesting that he was in this trouble because of his kindness to a
drunk, Pinky rattled off a remarkable story. When he went up to his
room after closing the saloon, he said, he had forgotten about O'Hara's
being there. He had maybe had a nip too much himself, he admitted, and
he had been given a scare by something or somebody crawling around in
the dark. He had grabbed a length of pipe which happened to be handy
and had cautiously approached the crawler, who was now lying still.
Just then Willie had come through the window.

"There were t-two l-lamps burning in that room," Willie put in.

"You're a liar!" Pinky said.

"Now, now, now!" Judge Badger said. "We won't have any more of that."

"You're another," Willie said.

The judge struck an angry blow with the wooden nutcracker he used for a
gavel. He appraised Willie witheringly, then he asked quietly if Willie
had any concrete evidence that a crime had been committed, and if so,
what it was.

Willie had brought Vickers' doctor to the courtroom, and he now stepped
forward and said that in his opinion O'Hara who was too sick to appear,
had been drugged. He couldn't say for sure what the drug was.

The judge asked a few more questions and then pointed out that there
was no evidence that the drug had been administered in the Pink Lady
and no grounds for a charge against Pinky.

"Howsoever," he said, "surreptitious administration of drugs is a
serious offense, and this court directs the marshal's office to further
investigate this matter with a view to discovery of guilty party or
parties. Upon presentation of evidence that will warrant a bill of
indictment, this court will order the arrest of said guilty party and
he will be taken to Ellensburg and the matter will be prosecuted in
district court."

Willie left the courtroom with anger a seething molten pressure in him.
He trudged toward the main street beside the doctor.

"The marshal cooked your goose at the very beginning when he told the
judge you'd made a mistake," the doctor said. "If he'd backed you up,
the judge might have agreed to a charge."

"I kn-know," Willie said bitterly. "They're all in together."

Pinky and the marshal reached the street ahead of them, Pinky angling
off toward the Pink Lady and Madrid going into the hotel. It was the
second time that morning that he had visited the hotel.

Willie went to his room and stretched out on the bed. After a few
minutes, Madrid barged in without knocking. Willie didn't move from the
bed.

"All right, cowboy," Madrid said. "I'll take that badge."

Willie unpinned it and handed it over. Madrid stuffed it into the
pocket of his bright blue shirt.

"You're all in together," Willie said. "You're a b-bunch of crooks in
together."

"Now don't get me mad," Madrid said. "You're getting out of this lucky.
Get over and get your pay from Sam Lester. Then get your tail out of
town. Today."

Willie said nothing. Madrid glared and said, "Do you understand that?
Today."

Willie nodded.

"If you aren't gone by dark, you'll get hurt. Hurt bad." Madrid turned
on his heel and went out.

After a while Willie got up, walked to the townhouse, and knocked on
the door of Sam Lester's office. Sam seemed to be expecting him. He
plunked a little pile of gold and silver on his desk.

"Sixty-six dollars," he said. "That includes a full day's pay for
today. Sign this, please."

While Willie was signing the receipt, Sam added a double eagle to the
pile of money. "I understand you're leaving town," he said. "This is
for traveling expenses."

Willie silently pocketed the money. He left the building and walked
around back to Persia's kitchen. Stella was dividing a batch of bread
dough into loaves and putting it into pans. He asked if Miss Persia was
in, and Stella said she was in the parlor.

Willie found her seated at the secretary. "I been f-fired," he said.

"I'm sorry," Persia said. "But there's nothing I can do, Willie. You
made a serious mistake."

"You're in it, t-too! You're all in t-together!"

"Would you like a letter of recommendation?" Persia said. "I'd be glad
to give you one. It might help you get another job."

"I hoped you'd l-listen to my s-side of the s-story," Willie said.

"Willie, you accused a member of the town council of a serious crime
without one speck of evidence. I'm sure it was an honest mistake,
but...."

Willie put his back to her and walked out. Stella offered him a cup of
coffee and a piece of pie, and he ate silently, thanked her, and left.

He marched straight across town and took the road to Vickers' camp.




XVI


They had nothing to eat except the can of beans Muckamuck Charlie had
pocketed, some rock-hard biscuits from Tesno's saddlebags, and a few
trout snagged with a hook made from a horseshoe nail. Palma's trail
circled, zigzagged, doubled back. Surprisingly, he made no attempt
to ambush them--although they were slowed again and again as they
made roundabout approaches to places where he might be lying in wait.
Finally, it seemed a safe conclusion that he had used up his ammunition
sniping at horses and the boiler crew.

On the afternoon of the second day, Charlie announced that Palma had
doubled back toward the road. He had entered a deep, cliff-guarded
valley that led nowhere else, Charlie said.

Tesno felt a little stab of alarm. Could Palma plan to take another
crack at the boiler? Alone and without ammunition?

Charlie didn't think this likely. "Hit road high up now," he said.
"Boiler _siah_. Far away."

Still, the possibility couldn't be ignored. Tesno decided that they
would graze the horses for an hour and then ride all night.

They came upon the road at midmorning. They had given up trying to
follow Palma's trail; they didn't know if he was still ahead of them or
if they had passed him in the night. Since Charlie knew Palma by sight,
Tesno sent him on up to Tunneltown.

"If he shows up there, go see Ben Vickers," Tesno said. "Vickers.
Nobody else. He'll get word to me."

He turned his tired horse down-grade as Charlie jogged off in the other
direction. He came upon the boiler two hours later, only a few miles
above Cle Elum. It was pulled off the road preparatory to another haul
by block and tackle. It had made only three miles the day before,
Rejack reported, and he guessed that was going to be about the average.

"You look like you need a meal and a bed," he told Tesno.

"The meal will help," Tesno said.

He felt as if he were in danger of dropping in his tracks, but he
couldn't sleep--not yet. Even if Palma weren't lurking in the woods,
waiting his chance, there was the possibility that he would come riding
boldly down the road on his way to Ellensburg, believing himself still
ahead of Tesno. Of course, he might already have done that....

A few minutes later, Tesno got a chance to check this latter
possibility. He was eating a plate of beans at the cook wagon when
Whisky Willie Silverknife came riding up the road from the direction of
Ellensburg. Tesno hailed him, and he rode over, not getting out of the
saddle.

"I'm in a huh-hurry," he said. He was red-eyed and looked as sleepy as
Tesno felt. Three pairs of handcuffs dangled from his saddlehorn.

Tesno asked if he had met anyone on the road who might be Palma. "I
don't rightly know what he looks like," Tesno said. "He's dressed like
a cowhand, and he might be wounded. Nothing very serious, but he might
have a bandaged arm, something like that."

Willie hadn't seen him.

"What are the handcuffs for?" Tesno asked. "Where have you been?"

"I'm m-mad," Willie said. "M-Madrid fired me."

"You're still wearing a badge."

"T-take a g-good look at it. It's a county deputy's badge. Mr. Vickers
gave me a letter to the sheriff, and I rode down and g-got s-sworn in
this morning."

"And you're going back and get even. Is that it?"

"I'm going to close that Pink Lady up tight. I'm going to send Pinky
to p-prison. If Miss P-Persia gets hurt, too, I c-can't help it. She
wouldn't b-back me up."

"Willie, you get off that horse and have some food," Tesno said. "I
want to hear about this."

Willie sullenly dismounted and accepted a plate of beans. He gave
Tesno an account of his rescue of O'Hara, the hearing before Judge
Badger, his appeal to Persia. He pulled a folded paper from a hip
pocket and waved it in Tesno's face.

"This is a wuh-huh-warrant for Pinky Bronklin's arrest, issued by the
district court."

Tesno took the warrant and unfolded it. Willie produced an inch-thick
bundle of similar papers from the other hip pocket.

"I got some m-more d-documents," Willie said. "Closing orders,
warrants, subpoenas. Some of them are b-blank. The district attorney
said to fill them in ac-c-cording to my j-judgment."

Tesno muttered an exclamation as he read the warrant. "Looks like
you've got Pinky dead to rights," he said. "This charges him with
illegal possession of drugs, illegal administration of drugs, operating
a gambling hall.... That must have been some letter Ben wrote!"

"The p-people down in Ellensburg are beg-g-ginning to take an interest
in Tunneltown," Willie said. "Teamsters and drummers and such have been
complaining."

"How do you figure to prove this drug charge?"

"J-jail Pinky, then search the place. I'll take Vickers' doctor with
me. Ch-chances are we'll find the kn-knockout drops."

"Willie, you wait till I get back there before you start closing
saloons," Tesno said.

"N-not much. I figure to d-do it tonight. I'm m-m-mad."

"You know that Persia is the principal owner of the Pink Lady?"

"I can't help that. It's a rotten p-place and I'm going to sh-shut it
up."

"Damned if I don't believe you're a bluenose," Tesno said. He said it
jovially; then reproach crept into his voice. "Damn it, Willie, it's
not a small thing to sit in judgment of others. You're mad. You've got
yourself some official backing. But you've no right to be high-handed."

"My g-god! That from you?"

"From me," Tesno said.

"You t-took it on yourself to judge everything and everybody in
Tunneltown the day you arrived."

"I judged nobody," Tesno said. "I was just doing a job for pay."

"You said this was a rotten town preying on Vickers' c-crew. You even
jailed the marshal. You said the hell with authority. Then Miss Persia
wrapped you around her f-finger like a Christmas ribbon. N-now you're
in with the rest of them!"

"The town council agreed to go along with me, Willie. That changed
things."

"M-maybe you don't know it," Willie said. "B-but it was the other w-way
around. Miss Persia rustled her skirts at you and you w-went along with
the town."

"We'll leave Persia out of this," Tesno said with a steel edge of anger
in his voice.

"We c-can't--even if you beat the peewallopus out of me. I g-guess you
could do it easy enough. You're tougher than anybody I kn-know." Willie
laid his plate on the tailgate and looked Tesno squarely in the eye.
"And you've g-got no more spine than a rag d-doll!"

He put his back to Tesno, caught up his reins, and swung into the
saddle. He poised a rein end above his horse's rump and said, "I'm
m-mad. M-maybe I didn't m-mean all that."

Tesno wanted to tell him to come back and finish his dinner. Instead,
he found himself saying gruffly, "You meant it. And be damned to you."

The handcuffs hanging from Willie's saddlehorn clinked dully as he
pivoted the horse and headed back to the road at a trot.

An hour later the boiler had been inched up the hillside and was back
on the road. Rejack called a halt just above a small bridge, and the
crew clustered around the cook wagon for a late dinner. Something about
the bridge interested Tesno; then suddenly he recognized it. He turned
his horse up the creek and followed it to the grassy place where he
had nooned on his first trip to Tunneltown, the place where Willie had
surprised him.

He got off his horse and washed his face in the chill, singing water.
He stretched out in the soft grass then, knowing that he had to sleep
if only for an hour. Yet sleep did not come at once, and he lay staring
at a ragged patch of sky.

_I can stay till this boiler gets up to the job_, he thought. _I can do
that much for Ben. Then there's nothing to do but quit. I'm finished as
a troublebuster. Willie made me see that clearly enough._

He had never really believed in the railroad; but he had taken his
living from it, and he had given what it asked in return.

Willie had said he was tough. _I've made a profession of toughness, he
thought, but I've made it an honest profession. I've laid my life on
the line to do what I've been paid to do. That's all I've ever been, an
honest tough. It wasn't much, but it was something. Now I am a man in
love. And I am nothing at all._

There was still the ranch he had dreamed of for so long--or was there?
Persia had spoiled that for him, he realized. In spite of her show of
interest, she would want no part of the modest spread he would have, of
the years of frugal living while he built up a herd. No, there was not
even that now. There was only the soft dream of a lovely woman whose
eager tenderness absorbed a man ... and left him nothing of himself.

It was tenderness itself that was his enemy, he thought. He had
toughened the shell around his loneliness to the point of brittleness;
he had made himself defenseless against love for a woman when it had
finally come to him....

He slept and woke and overtook the boiler a mile on its way. It was in
little danger, he judged, as long as it was rolling along the road.
And after another short pulley haul had been made with no attempt at
interference, he decided that Palma probably was not in the vicinity.

That night he rolled up in his blankets under the wagon with the great
weight of the boiler above him. He slept deeply and was wakened by one
of the guards shining a lantern in his face. A messenger had arrived
with a note from Ben Vickers:

    _Jack_

    _Some drunken Indian says I got to get a message to you, I can't
    make out why. Something to do with a man named Palma._




XVII


Persia Parker sat in her usual place at the head of the council table
and listened demurely while Sam Lester outlined a plan for the town to
issue scrip. She didn't know if the plan had originated with him or
with Mr. Jay. She didn't thoroughly understand it, but Sam had assured
her that there would be considerable advantage in it, if it was done
right.

When Sam had finished speaking, she turned the meeting over to him and
left the room. This had been agreed on beforehand--there seemed to be
certain hidden profits in the plan that were best discussed in her
absence.

She walked along the long hall and entered her parlor, halting in
surprise as a man rose slowly from the sofa.

He was stocky, brute-faced, and wore a pointed blond mustache and
several days growth of pale stubble. He was dirty and looked exhausted.
There was a large dark stain on his jeans--a bloodstain. She felt a
little stab of panic.

"There's a meeting in there," he said, gesturing with his hat toward
the other part of the building. "The door was open and I couldn't get
past to Lester's rooms, so I come in here."

She recognized him now as one of the pair who had hidden in Sam's rooms
a few days ago. She had taken food up to them.

"I got a bullet scratch on my leg," he said. "It wouldn't amount to
nothing if it had been took care of, but I been on the run three days.
It's got to be dressed. I got to have some food."

He sank down heavily. A blood-stained bandage showed through a tear in
the faded cloth of his jeans. He would get the sofa dirty, she thought,
and she frowned her annoyance.

"I'll go back to the meeting and close the door so you can get up to
Sam's quarters," she said.

"My horse has got to be took care of. He's out back."

"Tell Sam about it." She turned back toward the hall.

"It's got to be done quick. I got two men on my tail."

"_Two_ men?"

"I take one to be a Injun, the other Vickers' troublebuster."

       *       *       *       *       *

Whisky Willie reached Tunneltown shortly after dark. He left his horse
at the livery, unhooked the handcuffs from his saddle and walked
stiffly to the marshal's office.

Madrid was at his desk behind an oil can and a mound of rags, cleaning
his revolver. He leaped to his feet as Willie walked in and dumped the
handcuffs on the desk.

"I told you, cowboy," Madrid said, swallowing his amazement. "I warned
you."

"This is a c-c-county badge I'm wearing," Willie said.

Madrid gaped at the badge. "What the hell are you trying to pull?"

Willie drew the stack of papers from his hip pocket, selected one and
slapped it on the desk. "That's the document that goes with the badge,
Marshal. You better read it. The sheriff of Kittitas County requests
that you give me the use of your jail and your c-co-operation."

Madrid made a shaky try at seeming amused. "You really pulled this off,
kid?"

"You know what c-co-operation means? It means you try to interfere
j-just once and I'll jail you like T-Tesno did."

Madrid slid shells into his revolver and dropped it into his holster.
Grabbing his hat from a peg in the wall, he left the office without
another word. Willie watched him from the doorway till he entered the
hotel, then followed.

When Willie entered the lobby, it was empty except for the clerk, who
was sorting mail.

"Where d-did the m-marshal go?" Willie demanded.

"I thought you got f-f-fired," the clerk said insolently.

Willie picked up an inkwell and smashed it on the floor at the clerk's
feet. The clerk opened his mouth in outrage, but he saw Willie's hard
little black eyes and said nothing at all.

"I asked a q-qu-question," Willie said. "I want a b-better answer."

"Third floor, I guess. That's where he usually goes."

"Who's on the th-third floor?"

The clerk consulted a chart. "Jackson, Dockeray, Smith, Jay, Lewis,
Mann, Parce, Oliver...."

"Who's permanent?"

"Mr. Jay keeps his rooms on a monthly basis. He's the only one on that
floor who does."

"Th-thanks."

Willie marched out of the hotel and made straight for the Pink Lady.
Pinky Bronklin, who was working the far end of the bar, called loudly
to the barkeep who stepped up to serve Willie.

"Tell him we don't serve Injuns!"

"You an Injun?" the barkeep said and immediately moved away.

Feeling the eyes of the crowd center on him, Willie pushed away from
the bar and walked down to where Pinky was.

"Get the hell out of my place," Pinky said.

"T-take a good l-look at my badge," Willie said. "You're t-talking to a
county deputy."

Pinky scowled at the badge. His eyes lifted to Willie's face. He opened
his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and abruptly turned his back.

Willie moved up the bar, pulled the wad of papers from his pocket, and
threw one of these on the bar with a slap that brought Pinky around.

"The Pink Lady is closed as of right now!" Willie proclaimed.
"Everybody out!"

Pinky unfolded the paper and dropped it like something hot. He motioned
to the barkeep nearest the door. "Get Madrid here! Quick!"

"B-bring Mr. Jay with him," Willie said.

Pinky gave Willie a sick, sagging stare. Willie began to herd customers
into the street. Two minutes later the place was empty except for
Pinky, one barkeep, and the dealers. Willie waited while Pinky checked
in the cash and stowed it into the safe. Then he dismissed everybody
except Pinky.

"J-jail for you t-tonight. T-tomorrow I'm taking you to Ellensburg."

He marched the saloonkeeper into the marshal's office, finding that
Madrid hadn't returned. He locked him into the cell, pocketed the key,
and returned to the street.

A weariness rose in him now. The worst was over, he guessed. In the
morning, he would take Vickers' doctor to the Pink Lady and they would
search it for knockout drops....

Something moved against the dark wall ahead of him. He stopped stark
still. A man stepped out of the shadows, staggering a little. Willie
brushed past, smelling whisky; then he whirled in surprise at hearing
himself addressed in the Yakima tongue.

"It is Silverknife, the grandson of my mother's brother."

Willie peered closely at the dark face. He, too, spoke in Yakima,
stuttering not nearly so badly as he did in English.

"It is Red Iron of the Kilickitats. He sees better in the darkness than
I, even when he is drunk."

Muckamuck Charlie touched Willie's badge admiringly. "It seems you have
become a _tyee_ among the white men. But then you have their blood."

"What are you doing here?" Willie asked.

"I am to be given _chikamin_ for watching a man...."

Willie listened tensely while Charlie explained about being hired by
Tesno, their pursuit of Palma, and his coming alone to Tunneltown.
Charlie had taken it upon himself to examine the hoofs of all the
horses in the livery barn, and he had found the animal whose shoe marks
he had been following for three days. So Palma was here, and Charlie
had been watching the street for him. He had discovered a place where
an Indian could buy whisky, so he had been able to keep his stomach
warm while he watched.

"Did you ask the man at the livery about the horse?" Willie said.

"It was not brought in by Palma but by a _tyee_ of the town who lives
in the big house with two doors. The one called Sam Lester. You got
whisky?"

Willie took him to a restaurant and bought him a meal, tapping his
badge when the waitress protested about serving Indians. Charley said
he would sleep in the livery barn, where he could keep an eye on the
horse. Reluctantly, Willie lent him a dollar for a stomach-warmer.

Willie went to his room and crawled into his sagging cot. He sank
almost at once into thick slumber. The door to his room was without a
lock, and he did not hear it open. Nor was he disturbed by the dark,
cat-careful figure that stole about the room.

When he woke at daylight, his badge was missing--along with his
precious stack of court papers.

He went at once to the marshal's office and found it deserted. The cell
door stood open. Its padlock--picked or forced--lay on the floor. Pinky
Bronklin was gone.

Willie sank down at the desk, feeling foolish. Without evidence of
authority, he was nothing. Pinky Bronklin would laugh in his face. If
he rode back to Ellensburg and reported what had happened, they were
likely to laugh at him there, too. He asked himself what Tesno would
do. _Damn it, he would go ahead anyway. He never did have authority._

When Willie returned to the street, the town was coming to life. Stores
and saloons were opening. Workers from the night shift trudged the
boardwalk, hunched against the early chill. The big door behind the
Pink Lady's batwings had been swung wide....

Willie found Ben Vickers at the cookhouse, bent over a stack of
flapjacks. Ben listened eager-eyed as Willie outlined a plan.

Ten minutes later Willie entered the supply building and handed the
clerk a note signed by Ben. The clerk issued one stick of dynamite, one
cap, one fuse. Willie fitted on the cap and fuse, shoved the dynamite
into a hip pocket and walked back to town.

There were two customers at the Pink Lady bar. One faro game was going
with three players at the table. Pinky Bronklin sat nearby and sipped
coffee. "We don't serve Injuns!" he called when he saw Willie.

Willie stepped up to the bar. "I want a cigar," he said. He faced
Pinky. "Two more charges against you. J-jailbreaking. Failure to obey a
c-c-closing order."

"You b-been warned," he said.

Customers, faro dealer, and barkeep plunged for the door, colliding
as they reached it, careening into the street. Pinky Bronklin seemed
petrified. When he managed to speak, he stuttered worse than Willie.

"Y-you c-can't b-bluff me," Pinky said.

"Who's b-bluffing?" Willie said.

He touched the cigar to the fuse, which began to sputter merrily. He
gave the stick of dynamite another flip in the air as Pinky tore for
the batwings with hands straight out in front of him and hit the street
screaming for Madrid.

Willie waited till the fuse had burned down a bit; then he laid
the dynamite on the bar and strolled through the door. A crowd was
gathering a little way down the street. Pinky had almost reached the
marshal's office and was gesturing wildly to Madrid, who was coming out
of it. They both started toward the Pink Lady at a trot.

Willie met Pinky head on and spun him around.

"B-back to that cell," Willie said. "This t-time, I'm going to handcuff
you to the b-bunk."

The roar shook the town. Afterward, there was a lingering tinkle of
falling glass. Kind of like music, Willie thought.




XVIII


Stella stood by the swinging door that led from the kitchen into the
dining room and pushed it open a few inches. This enabled her to hear
much of what was said in the living room.

She didn't often eavesdrop. But judging from the way Mr. Jay, Mr.
Madrid and Mr. Lester had descended on Persia all at once, they
considered themselves up against crisis, which was almost certain to
concern Willie. Stella had sort of a crush on Willie, even though he
never gave her any real encouragement.

Mr. Jay was doing most of the talking. The way his voice rose and fell,
Stella judged he was pacing the floor.

"I have failed completely in my efforts to buy the tunnel contract,"
he was saying. "This is due largely to the stupidity of people I have
paid to help me. I have spent a tidy sum on the project, and I'm not
giving up. If I don't get the contract, at least I have the town, and
I will make it pay as never before. I don't intend to be stopped by
this ridiculous little clown who has got the authorities in Ellensburg
interested in us."

Stella snorted softly. Mr. Jay talked as if he were God, she thought.

"I have a plan for getting those authorities off our backs," he
went on. "It is simple enough. Persia and the council will publicly
recognize that Tunneltown has got out of hand. They will ask a man of
position and integrity to take over and clean up the mess. This man
will be me. The council will call the election that it has postponed. I
shall be elected mayor.

"Of course, it must not be known that I am--for all practical
purposes--the proprietor of the town. I will confer with the
politicians as an outsider brought in in an emergency. I assure you I
can handle them. The sure way to make a politician lose interest in
anything is to try to interest him in it." Mr. Jay paused and there was
a low, dutiful surge of laughter.

"What about Pinky?" Mr. Madrid asked. "Like I told you, Willie means to
take him to Ellensburg for trial."

"We can't permit this to happen. With his jail record and all those
charges against him, the prosecuting attorney is likely to offer him a
deal--and Pinky will tell all he knows about me."

Persia spoke now for the first time. "How can we avoid this, Mr. Jay?"

"Willie has shown himself to be a reckless fool," Mr. Jay said. "A
regrettable accident is quite within the realm of possibility."

"He's lost his badge and papers," Madrid said. "As far as I'm
concerned, he has no business taking Pinky out of town, I'll stop
him--for good."

"No," Persia said. "I don't want that."

"It mustn't happen in town," Mr. Jay said. "That would require a great
deal of awkward explaining. It must happen on the road. Pinky Bronklin
will have a concealed gun and will make his escape."

"What will happen to Willie?" Persia asked.

"That's in the lap of the gods," Mr. Jay said quickly.

"I don't think you mean that," Persia said. "You mean to have Willie
killed. I won't agree to that."

"My dear." Mr. Jay's tone was tiredly patient. "Must I remind you that
you are the principal owner of the Pink Lady? A few repairs, a new
stock of liquor, and you'll be in business again--if Willie does _not_
get to Ellensburg. If he does you'll lose your license--and that'll be
the least of it. You'll quite possibly have to face charges yourself."

A door slammed and there was the clump of boots as newcomers came in
from the other part of the building. There was a great deal of stirring
around and exclaiming. Then Stella gasped as Willie's voice rose above
the others.

"I found this r-rascal upstairs in Mr. Lester's rooms. I'm t-told he's
wanted for b-boiler-wrecking and such. I'm arresting him and taking
him to Ellensburg along with Pinky."

There was a great deal of confused talk then, and Stella could sift
nothing out of it. She knew that a stranger had spent the night in Sam
Lester's quarters, but she had not seen him. Willie must have barged up
there and arrested him, she realized.

She got a glimpse of Willie and his prisoner as they passed the dining
room doorway on their way to the front door. Madrid and Mr. Jay came
into view behind them. Madrid had his hand on his gun, but Mr. Jay gave
him a look and a quick little shake of the head. The front door slammed
heavily, and Willie and his prisoner were gone.

"He's gone crazy!" Madrid said. "Plumb paper-doll crazy!"

"Actually, it's working out well," Mr. Jay said. "With _two_ prisoners
to guard, Willie will be taking a foolish risk. A break will be that
much more plausible. Don't you agree, Persia?"

"I don't want anything to do with it," Persia said, a languid thickness
in her voice. "I don't even want to hear about it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Jay and Madrid walked together to the main street.

"I've already got a horse for you," Mr. Jay said. "It's tied behind the
hotel."

"Must say you think of everything," Madrid muttered.

"This must look like a break--surely you understand that. Don't forget
to take an extra gun."

"What for? If one of the prisoners had a hidden gun, he'd take it away
with him, wouldn't he?" Madrid protested.

"Palma and Bronklin have to go, too, Pete."

They walked in silence for a few yards, Madrid staring at the ground.
"I guess I can do it," he said somberly. "But three of 'em!"

Mr. Jay halted suddenly and pointed at a rider who had just entered the
town and was swinging into the road to Vickers' camp. "Tesno!" Madrid
said.

"He's headed for the camp," Mr. Jay said. "If Willie gets out of here
with his prisoners without meeting him, there's no need to change our
plan."

Five minutes later, wearing a coat over his blue and white silk shirt,
carrying an extra revolver in his pocket, Madrid rode quietly out of
town.

       *       *       *       *       *

Muckamuck Charlie woke to the sound of an argument below him. He lay
almost completely submerged in hay. His head ached. He was feeling
_sick tumtum_. He felt around in the hay for a bottle and found none.
He asked himself where he was and what he was doing here. After a
moment, he remembered he was watching a horse.

Slowly, stifling groans, he worked himself out of the hay to his
hands and knees and peered over the edge of the loft. He saw with
satisfaction that Palma's horse was still in its stall. Nearby, two men
were arguing. One was the stableman. The other was Willie Silverknife.

As near as Charlie could make it out, Willie wanted to take the horse,
but the stableman wouldn't let him without permission from the man who
had brought it in. Charlie got to his feet. Teeteringly, he worked his
way along the edge of the loft to a ladder. By the time he reached its
bottom, the argument had stopped. Willie seemed to have settled for
three other horses, which he and the stableman were saddling.

When he saw Charlie, Willie said, "Ho!" and made a joke in English
which Charlie didn't understand.

"_Sick tumtum_," Charlie said. "You got whisky?" Willie swung a saddle
to the back of a horse, and Charlie saw that his hip pockets were
empty. "You got dollar?"

"I have taken your man, your Palma," Willie said, speaking now in
the Yakima tongue. He gave the horse a punch in the ribs to make him
deflate himself, then he tightened the cinch. "He is in the jailhouse.
I will take him to Ellensburg."

Charlie absorbed this silently. Willie went on to say that he expected
to meet Tesno on the road. He said Charlie ought to ride along with
him, if he was able, and rejoin Tesno.

Charlie replied that he had a great sickness in his head and stomach,
was having trouble seeing clearly, and was quite likely going to die
unless he could get hold of some whisky. Besides, Willie's capture of
Palma put an end to Charlie's responsibility in the matter, and he
might as well get drunk.

Willie said crisply that he would lend no more money. Charlie retired
to an empty stall and sat down. The livery man caught the reins of
Willie's horse and led it outside. All at once, Charlie was aware of a
young white woman in the barn. She had appeared so miraculously that
Charlie considered the possibility she might be a spirit, but Willie
seemed to know her.

"Stella!" he said.

"Villie," she said in strangely accented English, "you must not leave.
They vill kill you. I heard them."

"Now just c-calm d-down," Willie said. "What did you hear?"

"Marshal Madrid said he vould stop you from leaving town. I think he
meant he vould kill you. Mr. Yay, he said no. He said it vould happen
on the road. The prisoner vould have a gun and escape. You vould be
dead, I think. At first, it vas only vun prisoner. Then you took the
other vun. Mr. Yay said so much the better...."

Stella was extremely excited, and her accent made it doubly hard for
Muckamuck Charlie to understand what she was talking about. He gathered
that she was warning Willie someone would kill him if he tried to take
Palma to Ellensburg, but Charlie doubted that this could be taken
literally. She probably wanted to keep Willie in town for reasons of
her own. It was disappointing to see that Willie was sobered by her
jabbering.

"Thanks, S-Stella," Willie said.

"You'll not go?"

"I g-guess I'll go. I'll be as safe on the road as I am in t-town. But
I'll search those prisoners before I start out, Stella."

Willie touched her elbow and they walked together through the big barn
door into the sunlight. Charlie got up and watched Willie ride to the
marshal's office, leading the two extra horses. Stella hurried off
toward the big house behind the town. Willie went into the office and
reappeared with two handcuffed prisoners. All three mounted and rode
out of town.

The sight of Palma stirred an ugly hatred in Charlie and a fear for
Willie. True, Willie had a gun in his belt and the prisoners were
handcuffed. But Jim Palma was a strong and wily man. He had stomped
that Umatilla boy to death down at Selah, and Charlie had heard other
bad things about him. He wasn't sure that Willie was a match for Palma.
Maybe that jabbering squaw was right, after all, Charlie thought.

He made his way up a cleared hillside above town, feeling a little
better as he walked. He had staked his horse up here--no sense in
wasting whisky money on a livery fee. After a day's grazing, the animal
looked to be in fair condition. Saddle and bridle were in a clump of
brush where Charlie had cached them. He fought a brief battle with the
temptation to sell these for whisky money; then he saddled up and cut
behind the town to the Ellensburg road.




XIX


Tesno made his report to Ben, listened in amazement to the contractor's
account of Willie's closing of the Pink Lady, and they rode to the town
and the townhouse.

Stella answered his knock. Instead of her usual dignified reception,
she greeted him with emotion.

"Mr. Tesno! Did you meet Villie? He has gone to Ellensburg."

"Jack!" Persia darted into the hall and threw herself into his arms.
She led him into the parlor, asking Stella to leave them alone.

Stella went into the dining room--Tesno had a feeling that she did not
go on to the kitchen. Persia pulled him down beside her on the sofa,
and he found himself holding her hand.

"So much has happened!" she said. "Did you hear about Willie? They say
he has lost his mind. After all I did for him, Jack, he--"

"Persia, I'm looking for a man named Palma. Is he here?"

"That must be the man Willie arrested," she said quickly. "He came
barging in here with a stranger and did some wild talking. I was
meeting with ... some people. Willie said something about taking this
man to Ellensburg with Mr. Bronklin."

"And they have already left?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"They have left," Stella said, appearing in the dining room doorway.
She drew herself up very straight. "I varned him, Mrs. Parker. I told
him that Mr. Yay planned to have him killed. He said he vould be all
right, but I am afraid. Vill he be all right, Mr. Tesno?"

"Stella, you have apparently been eavesdropping!" Persia said with
an icy anger in her voice. "That is bad enough. But you've twisted
everything you heard into a perfectly outlandish story. Stella, have
you a crush on Willie? Is that why--"

"I have twisted nothing," Stella asserted. "It vas a plan they vere
making, Mr. Tesno, Mr. Yay and the marshal. Mrs. Parker said no, she
didn't vant it. I give her credit for that. After vile, she said she
didn't vant to hear about it. She don't really care what they do, Mr.
Tesno."

"Stella, you _liar_!" Persia was on her feet. Her eyes were blazing.
There were shocking angry lines in her face. "You get out of this
house! Immediately!"

"Yes, ma'am," Stella said.

"Wait," Tesno said.

Rising, he touched Persia's elbow, and she flounced violently away from
him. For just a second or two, she pressed both palms to her face. Then
she made a desperate effort at control, composing her voice but not
getting the searing anger out of her eyes.

"I didn't mean that, Stella," she said. "You _misunderstood_ what you
heard, and you've let your imagination run away with you."

"No, ma'am, I heard it straight. It vas a plan."

Persia turned away in exasperation. "What a day!" she said.

Tesno took her firmly by the shoulders and met her eyes. She lowered
them and would have come against him, but he held her off. "Persia, I
want the truth. From you. Is there a plan to kill Willie?"

"How do I know? They're hard men. There's a great deal at stake and--I
told them I would have nothing to do with it!"

"Yes," Stella said. "She told them that. She said she didn't even vant
to know about it."

Persia whirled and walked to the stairway. She halted there, face in
hands; but he did not follow.

"I am afraid for Villie, Mr. Tesno," Stella said.

"How long ago did he leave?"

"Yust before you came. Ten, fifteen minutes."

Tesno regarded her gloomily. "I'll go after him," he said. He strode
swiftly to the front door, and it closed heavily behind him.




XX


Willie's prisoners rode half a length ahead of him up the steep road
out of the gulch. He had searched them both and found no hidden weapon.
Both were handcuffed. He had assured them that if either made a false
move, he was going to shoot. He meant it and they knew he meant it.

Still, the fact that he had got out of town with no challenge from
Madrid seemed to confirm Stella's warning that there would be an escape
try on the road. The marshal and Mr. Jay weren't going to let him get
this pair of dandies to Ellensburg if they could stop it.

They crossed the first ridge and began a long, angling descent.
Willie's eyes scoured the timber ahead for any sign of life. Now and
then he raised himself in the saddle and glanced back. As they neared a
bend in the road after a long straight stretch, he saw that a rider was
following them.

He was a good quarter-mile away, and he was keeping his horse at a
fast trot. He didn't look like Madrid, but Willie was afraid to take
his eyes off his prisoners long enough to study him carefully. As they
rounded the bend, Willie concocted a plan.

The road bore sharply to the right here. Half a mile below, it crossed
a creek and then slanted back up the side of a massive range of hills
and through a little saddle between peaks. Out of sight of the man
behind them now, Willie ordered Palma and Bronklin to pull into the
trees to the left.

It seemed to him that they could cut cross-country and reach the road
again as it climbed the hills ahead. The riding would be rough, steep,
and slow; they would gain no time by the shortcut. But the chances were
that the man behind them wouldn't see their tracks leaving the road
here--only Indians were apt to notice such things along a well traveled
road. He probably wouldn't miss them till he had reached the bottom of
the valley and crossed the creek. There was a straight piece of road
there and he would suddenly find that they were no longer ahead of him.
He would turn back to discover where he had lost them. At least, Willie
hoped he would. He would eventually find their sign and follow it. But
by that time Willie and the prisoners would be back on the road a mile
and a half ahead. There was a ragcamp a bit farther along which they
could reach without fear of being overtaken. Willie planned no further
ahead than that.

Weaving through the big evergreens made keeping an eye on both
prisoners difficult. When they were well off the road, Willie called
a halt. While Palma and Pinky jeered and grumbled, he quickly cut a
length of picket rope and tied the bridle of one of their horses to the
tail of the other. Thus they were forced to travel pack-train fashion
and keep together.

They wound sharply down-grade, dodging branches, holding the horses to
a walk on Willie's order. The creek was deep and its banks were thick
with brush and jutting dead-falls, but they finally found a ford and
crossed. Then they worked up through forest again and came suddenly
upon the road. They rounded the first bend and ran smack into Madrid,
who was sitting his horses and waiting.

He was a scant ten yards away. He had been watching, had seen them
first, and had his revolver in hand. If they had hit the road a hundred
yards beyond this bend, they would have avoided him, Willie thought. As
it was, he was beaten, and he knew it. He thought of wheeling his horse
around and making a run for it. But he knew he would never make it.
That revolver in Madrid's hand would drop him at twice the distance.

Pinky and Palma, still riding in file with Pinky ahead, had reined up.
Willie kicked his horse forward and jumped it into Palma's. This sent
the horses of both prisoners into a dance, and Madrid had to rein out
of the way. Willie made a grab for his gun but barely got it clear of
his belt. Swinging his horse aside with one hand, Madrid pointed his
gun at the sky with the other, leveled it with a gentle chopping motion
and fired. Willie coughed and teetered out of the saddle to the road.
His startled horse trotted ahead of the others, and Madrid casually
leaned over and caught the reins.

Pinky and Palma calmed their horses and regarded the motionless figure
below them. Palma was the first to speak.

"And that'll be that," he said. He got down from the saddle with his
manacles hands held awkwardly in front of him and unfastened the rope
that held his horse to Pinky's. "I'll get the key off him," he said
then and walked toward Willie's body. Madrid made the chopping motion
with the gun again and shot him squarely between the shoulder blades.

Pinky stared in open-mouthed astonishment. He grinned shakily and said,
"What's my move, Pete? Go back with you or skidoo?"

"Neither," Madrid said, speaking for the first time. He raised the gun
again, and Pinky understood.

"Pete ... wait...."

"So long, cowboy," Madrid said as he pulled the trigger.

He drew the extra gun from his coat pocket, fired it in the air, and
tossed it to the ground near Pinky. Dismounting he recovered Willie's
gun, fired it twice, and dropped it near Willie. In the saddle again,
he led the horses up and down the road past the bodies several times to
assure a hopeless confusion of tracks. He then rounded the bend, left
the road and headed through the forest toward Tunneltown. It wouldn't
do to be seen on the road.

As soon as he was out of sight, Muckamuck Charlie emerged from the
trees, leading his horse. He walked round the bend and, having heard
the shots, was not surprised by what he found there. Mumbling to
himself, he bent over each man and assured himself they were all dead.

Lifting Willie's body under the arms, he dragged it to the side of the
road and straightened it out so it looked comfortable.

"You were a _tyee_ among them," he said in Yakima.

He climbed on his horse thinking that it was a bad business for an
Indian to get mixed up in white men's quarrels. He knew of only one
white man who would believe him when he told what he had seen. Tesno,
as far as he knew, was still with the boiler--or maybe on his way to
Tunneltown in response to Vickers' message. Charlie headed his horse
eastward--toward Ellensburg--and rode away.

       *       *       *       *       *

Prodding a tired horse, Tesno heard the shots distantly. He kicked the
animal into a lope, couldn't hold him there, settled for a wobbly trot.
A few minutes later, he met a riderless horse jogging along toward
Tunneltown, head held high to keep dragging reins from underfoot. He
waved an arm, turning the horse, and hazed it ahead of him. Almost at
once, two more horses appeared with empty saddles. With a sense of
disaster gnawing at him, he turned these, too.

He had an instant of hope when he first saw Willie stretched out beside
the road; but even before he dismounted and knelt beside the boy, this
faded. Willie was dead. Mr. Jay and Madrid had planned it. Persia might
have stopped it and didn't....

He had seen his share of death; mostly, he had turned away from it with
a shrug and maybe a muttered prayer, as a man must. Now he remembered
the first he had seen, that of a childhood playmate, how he couldn't
believe it, and this was like that. He brushed mud from Willie's face
with his fingers; he looked around at the road and the forest and the
sky. Willie was gone; but the world that he was a part of went on,
and he was not gone. It seemed as if the cloak of Time were lifted
momentarily and the illusion of past, present, and future dispelled.

_Nobody ever dies_, he thought. _Everything we are, everything we do,
everything we've ever done, good and bad, goes on forever._

This struck him sharply, fleetingly. The cloak fell again, and he was
angry.

He searched the ground, examined the guns. It looked as if one of the
prisoners had had a hidden gun. He had pulled it and shot Willie, who
had lived long enough to kill them both. That was how it looked, Tesno
thought, but that wasn't how it was. There were three empty shells in
the two guns. He had heard six shots.

He spent another half hour at the scene, studying it, learning little
from the hodgepodge of tracks but fixing every detail in his mind. A
train of freight wagons came lumbering along the road then, bound for
Tunneltown. The crew found tarpaulins in which to wrap the bodies and
stowed them on top of their loads.

When Tesno asked if they had met anyone within the last few miles,
several of the drivers shook their heads. Then one remembered.

"Just an Injun," he said. "Old Muckamuck Charlie who works at the Cle
Elum mill."




XXI


Tesno herded the riderless horses through town to the livery barn. He
briefly questioned the attendant, then rode back down the street. He
intended to go at once to Vickers' camp; but in front of the marshal's
office, a thing happened that changed his mind.

The freighters were unloading the canvas-shrouded bodies here, carrying
them into the office. A little crowd was gathering on the walk, and
Madrid stood at the front of it. Tesno maneuvered his horse between
wagons and stopped directly before the marshal. Silence washed over the
crowd. For a moment neither man spoke. Then Tesno said, "I found the
bodies."

"Why tell me?" Madrid said. "It didn't happen in my jurisdiction."

"Not interested?"

Madrid shrugged. "It's all plain enough. One of the prisoners had a
gun. They shot it out. They--"

Mr. Jay stepped out of the crowd. He touched Madrid's elbow without
looking at him, and the marshal fell silent.

"Is that what it looked like to you, Mr. Tesno?" Mr. Jay asked.

"No."

"Mr. Tesno I have been asked to run for mayor of this town." Mr.
Jay raised his voice for the crowd. "Before I accept, I shall visit
Ellensburg and assure myself of the support and the co-operation of
the authorities there. I should like to be able to give them the facts
about this tragedy. Will you step into the marshal's office and tell me
everything you know?"

"It was an ambush. That's all I'll say now."

"Can you prove that, Mr. Tesno?"

"When the time comes, Mr. Jay."

"I was under the impression that you wanted to give the marshal
details."

"I wanted to see if he was interested," Tesno said. "He wasn't."

Mr. Jay threw back his head so that his trim little beard seemed to
be pointed up at Tesno. There were hollow circles about his eyes, and
Tesno thought that the brilliance in them was not entirely the result
of emotion. He realized suddenly that the man was under a strain that
amounted to illness. Yet his brazen assurance was a formidable thing.

"I don't understand your hostility, sir," Mr. Jay said.

"Willie Silverknife is dead, Mr. Jay. The men who killed him will
answer to me."

Mr. Jay glared. "Did _you_ kill him, Mr. Tesno?"

You had to give the man credit. All he had left was a desperate
bluff--and a steely confidence in himself.

"You know better," Tesno said.

"My information is that this man Palma tried to wreck Vickers' boiler
a few days ago," Mr. Jay said loudly. "You killed his partner. You
were trailing him. You and Pinky Bronklin were old enemies. Willie
Silverknife wanted these men alive. Did you want them dead, Mr. Tesno?"

"I'll have my proof when I need it," Tesno muttered.

"I have no authority yet," Mr. Jay went on. "But let me warn you.
Keep out of the town and its affairs. If I hear of any more of your
blustering and bullying here, I'll insist that the marshal stop it."

Tesno grinned and gave a little toss of his head. He understood that
Mr. Jay was offering a challenge rather than a warning.

"I'm going to close your town down tight, Mr. Jay," he said.

He backed his horse from between the wagons and jogged down the street
to the Silver Slipper. He tied the horse and went in, knowing that
Madrid and Jay were watching.

The proprietor, who was a member of the town council, was sitting in a
poker game. Tesno stood behind him till a hand was finished.

"You want something?" the saloonkeeper asked testily. He was a bald man
with a vacant, puppy-dog face.

"I'm closing the Silver Slipper," Tesno said mildly. "You have until
tomorrow noon to move out."

"You're _what_?"

"I'm not going to argue about it. Get your stock out by then or it will
be smashed."

The man spread his hands and looked appealing at the others at the
table. He turned his eyes up to Tesno again and said, "Look, I've got a
territorial license. You can't--"

"Tomorrow noon."

Tesno pivoted and walked out. He rode up the street toward the Big
Barrel, passing the marshal's office again. The freight wagons had
moved on, but a little crowd was still there. Mr. Jay stood in the
doorway of the office.

Tesno delivered similar ultimatums to the proprietors of the Big Barrel
and the Western Star. Then he rode to the townhouse.

He dismounted at the back of the building and entered the kitchen.
Stella was sitting at the table, staring vacantly at the raw materials
for dinner. The news of Willie's death had already reached her.

"I was too late," Tesno said.

"He vas a decent man," Stella said, speaking very slowly. "Maybe a
little crazy, like they say, but decent."

"Stella, I want you to come with me."

"Mrs. Parker says I am not to leave the house. I am scared by the vay
she said it."

"You're leaving right now," he said. "We'll send somebody for your
things later."

She took his hand dazedly, and he led her outside. He mounted his
horse, swung her up behind the saddle, and took her straight to
Vickers' camp.

Keef O'Hara was with Ben Vickers in his cabin. They had just heard of
Willie's murder and were full of angry questions. They nodded politely
to Stella, not guessing the purpose of her presence and plainly
considering it an intrusion. Tesno held a chair for her and explained.

"Ben, I want you to put her up here at the camp. She isn't safe in
town."

"Here?" Ben said doubtfully. "There isn't a woman in camp. We have no
suitable place."

"Then make one, Ben. She heard Jay and Madrid planning to kill Willie."

Ben whirled to confront her. "You _heard_ them?"

Frightened and ill-at-ease, Stella haltingly told what she had heard.
When she had finished, Ben Vickers was grimly silent. He turned to his
work table and stood toying with some papers there, his back to the
others.

"Good lass!" Keef O'Hara said. "Say that in court and we'll see Jay and
Madrid hang as high as Mount Tacoma."

"It won't be that easy," Tesno said. "There were other witnesses to
that conversation. They would probably swear to a different version,
make it seem that Stella misunderstood."

"Jay didn't have to kill," Ben Vickers said darkly. "He was a good
engineer. This is a rough business. We've all been ruthless at times, I
guess. But outright murder...."

O'Hara nodded sharply. "Sure, it makes a man wonder."

"Jay got his start in Dakota," Ben said. "Worked for a man whose team
ran away and took him over a cliff. Jay took over the contract. In
Idaho he had a partner who was killed in a fall from a trestle. Nobody
ever figured out what he was doing up there in the middle of a snow
storm."

Ben turned away from the table, and the three men exchanged startled
glances. It seemed to Tesno that they were all thinking about the same
thing.

"About the only way you can get a man like Jay is in court," Ben said.
"And then you're likely _not_ to get him. I hate to think of what a
smart lawyer might do to Stella on the stand."

"I vould tell only the truth," Stella said.

"Another thing," Ben said. "You never saw this boiler-wrecker up close,
Jack. How could you swear it was Palma?" He shook his head dismally.
"Fact is, we have precious little on Jerome J. Jay."

"Come, lass." O'Hara held out a hand to Stella. "I'll see you to my
cabin, which is yours for the night. I'll move into the bunkhouse."

"I'll go along," Tesno said. "There's more that I want Stella to tell
me. A whole lot more."

He ate a late supper at the cookhouse and got back to town well after
dark. He went to the hotel, bolted the door of his room, and went to
bed.

Toward midnight, he was awakened by a persistent rapping. It turned out
to be Parris, the hotel owner and town councilman. He helped himself to
a chair and seemed to settle himself for a long talk.

"Just came from a council meeting."

"I figured there'd be one," Tesno said.

"I don't like what's happening," Parris said. He had a loud, harsh
voice. "I don't like wide-open saloons. I don't like gambling. But most
of all, I don't like your barging in like God Almighty and pushing
people around. The town ought to handle its own problems."

Tesno, tousled, sleep-eyed, in his underwear, was in no mood to listen
to complaints. "Willie Silverknife is dead," he growled.

"Yes, and you're likely to be if you try to enforce that noon deadline
you laid down. That's a friendly warning, Tesno, not a threat. They'll
be ready for you tomorrow. Madrid has organized every barkeep and every
gambler in town into what he calls a vigilance committee, and the
council is backing him up. Every man will be armed and waiting for you.
The first violent move you make, they'll drop you. Try Willie's trick
with the dynamite, and they'll kill you before you can light the fuse.
I don't like it and I spoke against it. I don't want any more killing."

"Was Persia at the meeting?" Tesno asked.

"She was not, but I assume she knows what's going on."

"Was Mr. Jay there?"

"Jay? Hell, no. I understand he will run for mayor, which will be a
fine thing. But he has nothing to do with the council now."

"Parris, Jay has been in control of Tunneltown since the beginning.
He's been running it wide open in an effort to put Vickers behind
schedule."

Parris wouldn't believe it, and Tesno was in no mood to argue. Finally,
he opened the door and said, "Stop talking for a while and think. Think
about what I've said. Good night and thanks for the warning."

Parris snorted and walked out. Tesno had no more than blown the lamp
and got into bed when he knocked on the door again.

"I got some siwash here who's been pestering the night clerk," he
called. "Claims he's got business with you. Won't go away."

Tesno got the lamp going and opened the door.

"Hello, Charlie," he said. "You come in, too, Parris."

Charlie came in and looked around the room slowly and unblinking.
Parris followed and closed the door. Charlie decided he would be
comfortable on the bed, smoothed back the covers, and sat down.

"_Nika cooley hyas tsik-tsik_," he said.

"He says he went to the big wagon," Tesno said. "To the boiler."

"I savvy Chinook," Parris said.

"_Mika ko_," Charlie said to Tesno. "You here all a time." He seemed to
consider this a joke.

"You found those dead men," Tesno said.

Charlie grunted. "_Kely tum-tum._ I cry in my heart. Silverknife my
cousin."

"Willie was your cousin?"

Charlie grunted affirmatively. He explained that he had seen Willie
leave town with the prisoners and that he had followed. Willie had
seen him in the distance, hadn't recognized him, and had tried to lose
him by leaving the road. Charlie had seen the tracks leading into the
woods, however, and had followed. Willie had rejoined the road and
Charlie had just reached it when he heard the shots. Not having a gun,
he had hidden in the trees and waited.

"Son of a gun chase horses up and down. Go into trees."

"Who, Charlie?" Tesno demanded.

"_Hyas tyee_," Charlie said. He tapped his chest. "_Chikamin_ star. Big
boss of town. Bright shirt."

"Madrid!" Parris said. "Madrid murdered the three of them!"

"Madrid," Tesno said.




XXII


Late in morning the town began to fill up. By eleven-thirty the saloons
were doing a jumping, three-deep-at-the-bar business. Extra bartenders,
armed and on hand as guards, were pressed into service. Gambling tables
that usually didn't open till evening were solidly ringed with players
and kibitzers. Other men stood in little groups out of the flow of
traffic, talking softly or just waiting.

Sid Saul, owner and operator of the Silver Slipper, remarked cynically
that he wished some bull-ragging troublebuster would threaten a
shut-down every day. But even as he said it, he dabbed at his bald head
with a handkerchief and kept his big, vacant, puppy-dog eyes on the
door.

Over the next half hour it came to Sid gradually that something more
than curiosity was responsible for this crowd. First, he overheard some
of the talk and gathered that Ben Vickers had given the whole crew
several hours off and had meted out fifty cents apiece drinking money
to boot. Second, he realized with a shock that this was not a drunken
crowd; the hum of steady talk was not punctuated by song, raucus
laughter, or quarreling. Third, by the time Sid's big gold watch told
him it was four minutes till noon, the jam had swollen beyond reason.
Men stood almost solid from wall to wall, and Sid could scarcely see
the door. He tossed his sweat-soaked handkerchief into a cuspidor and
took a place behind the bar.

"Where's Madrid?" he demanded. "He ought to be down here. Eddie, go
find Madrid."

Sid served no drinks. He just stood with one hand on the bar and the
other within reaching distance of a sawed-off shotgun stashed under it.
Except for a quick glance at his watch every minute or so, he kept his
eyes on the door.

"Where's Madrid?" he demanded again at one minute to twelve. "Where's
Eddie?"

The batwings eased open, but it was only another knot of workmen
crowding in. They shoved up to the bar directly in front of Sid. They
were all big men, and he couldn't see the door at all now without
moving out of reach of the gun.

It was noon by his watch, a minute after. His fingers touched the stock
of the shotgun. He craned his neck and found himself looking into the
grinning Irish face of Keef O'Hara.

"Take care with that trigger finger, lad," O'Hara said. "Blast one of
these terriers, accidental or not, and the rest will decorate a rope
with you."

The truth of this struck Sid like a blow, and he took his hand off the
gun. He knew now that he wasn't going to use it. You couldn't shoot
anybody in this mob, terrier or troublebuster, and hope to live. The
crowd was pressing around the ends of the bar. He whirled, making
a pushing gesture with his hands; then he whirled the other way,
astonished to find himself alone; the bartenders had been swallowed by
the crush and passed from hand to hand.

Then someone was reaching past him, taking the sawed-off shotgun from
under the bar. It was Tesno. He said, "Get out of town, Sid."

Sid went weak and sick and then into a blind rage. He knocked the gun
aside and drove a fist into Tesno's stomach. Tesno took the punch,
stepping back with it; his bootheel caught and he went down, turning
sideways and landing on one knee. Sid strode forward, starting a kick,
but Tesno rolled into his legs, grasped one of them, drove a shoulder
into Sid's groin. Sid lit flat on his back, got an elbow in the stomach
that took the wind and the fight out of him.

He was hoisted to his feet, spun around the bar and through the crowd
to a group in the center of the saloon. These were the bartenders and
the gamblers, ringed by a little cordon of guards.

"They kept pressing in till they swallowed us up," one of the dealers
moaned. "I reached for the revolver I had in my pocket and there was
already a hand on it...."

The crowd was briefly unruly now, scrambling for the contents of the
cash boxes and the liquor on the back bar. A half dozen men with
axes on their shoulders filed through to the back rooms. There was a
prolonged crash of glass from the storeroom.

Dave Coons wove through the crowd then, saying, "Drift down to the Big
Barrel, boys.... The Big Barrel next...."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Jay and Pete Madrid stood at a window of Mr. Jay's hotel suite and
looked down at the street, which was nearly empty. They had watched the
mob pour up the street from the Silver Slipper to the Big Barrel to the
Western Star, which had completely swallowed it now. The window was
open. Madrid held a rifle in his hands.

"It'll be over in a moment," Mr. Jay said tiredly.

Almost at once, the splash of shattered glass came to their ears. Mr.
Jay closed the window.

"He's got to show himself sometime," Madrid protested.

"He's keeping to the alleys," Mr. Jay said, "taking no chances. Anyhow,
the confusion is over and the chance is gone. The mob will mill around
town for a while, then go back to camp."

Madrid put the rifle into a corner and loosened his revolver in its
holster. "Then I'll go down and find him. Face to face, I can out-gun
him, Mr. Jay."

"Pete, that mob would pick you to pieces."

Madrid stared absently at the street. Men were beginning to trickle out
of the Western Star.

"Then the town is his--and Ben Vickers'. I'm getting out, Mr. Jay. If I
were you...."

"Just listen," Mr. Jay said. "He's going to be looking for you. I want
you to run. He'll follow. Draw him out of town away from the mob. Then
turn on him."

Madrid squinted thoughtfully. "But in town I have authority, the
_right_ to kill him."

"Do it my way once more, Pete. And when you've killed him, keep going.
Go over Runaway Mountain and down the Green River to Tacoma. Sell your
horse and take a ship to San Francisco." Mr. Jay extracted a sheaf of
bills from a wallet and passed them to Madrid. "This is expense money.
Go to the Palace Hotel. Register under a false name--Williams, George
Williams. Stay sober and do nothing to attract attention. In a few
weeks, I'll contact you. There'll be a payoff."

"I want five thousand, Mr. Jay."

"You shall have it, provided you kill Tesno. Now get some gear together
and ride out of here. See that somebody gets word to Tesno just as
you're leaving."

"You'll be--all right?" Madrid said. He stuffed the bills into a pocket.

"Of course I'll be all right! They have nothing on me but accusations
they can't make stick--not with Tesno out of the way."

They left the hotel together. Madrid hurried off to throw a blanket
roll together and get a horse. Mr. Jay made his way to the townhouse.

This was going to be an expensive business, this saloon-wrecking.
But perhaps it was for the best. He would be elected mayor and would
build a tight town organization that could stand up to Vickers, the
Ellensburg politicians--anybody. Tesno would be dead. When he, Mr. Jay,
had things solidly under control again, the saloons would open. He
would go ahead with the plan to issue scrip....

A dozen men idled in front of Persia's end of the townhouse. Two
saddlehorses and a mule browsed nearby. Mr. Jay thumped the knocker
once and walked in. He came to a stop as he entered the parlor,
startled to see that Tesno was here, standing at the center of a group
scattered around the room. The others were Dave Coons, Judge Badger,
Keef O'Hara, and Mr. Parris. Persia sat beside Sam Lester on the sofa.

Judge Badger stepped forward to greet Mr. Jay. "I'm glad you're here,
sir. Perhaps you'll reply to some of the charges--very extravagant
charges--that Mr. Tesno has made against you."

Mr. Jay threw back his head and pointed his beard at one and another of
the gathering.

"Charges? Be damned to Mr. Tesno and his charges! He has no authority
to make charges!"

"I'm accusing you of conspiring to murder Willie Silverknife and his
prisoners," Tesno said in a snow-soft voice. "Tomorrow I'm taking you
and Madrid and my witnesses to Ellensburg."

Mr. Jay drew himself up even straighter. "Slanderous nonsense! I assure
you that you are taking me nowhere."

"He claims he has found an Indian who saw Madrid at the scene of the
murder," Judge Badger said, "and a maid-servant who overheard you
planning the crime."

Sam Lester got to his feet. "That will be Stella, Mr. Jay," he
said. "She overheard you say that Willie was taking a dangerous
chance--something like that. She misinterpreted it to mean that you
wanted him killed. But there's nothing to worry about. Persia and I
were present at that conversation. We know that there was no such
implication."

"I should hope you do," Mr. Jay said.

"We will both testify to that--if necessary," Sam said.

Tesno's eyes swung to Persia. She met them defiantly and said, "We
certainly will."

"And you'll be perjuring yourself to protect a murderer you ought to be
doing everything possible to expose," Tesno said.

"Really, Jack, you're being unbearably sanctimonious," she said. "You
killed a man less than a week ago. And you have the gall--"

"You don't understand," he said. "Mr. Jay, shall I tell her how you got
your first contract--how you took over when the contractor went over
a cliff? How many other associates of yours died suddenly and without
witnesses, Mr. Jay? How about that partner of yours who fell off a
trestle in Idaho?... Persia's husband was your partner, too, wasn't he,
Mr. Jay?"

Silence smothered the room. Mr. Jay seemed too outraged to speak at
once. He glanced toward the door as if he would like to leave. Keef
O'Hara and Dave Coons moved squarely into his way. Tesno watched
Persia. She had paled. There was a noticeable pulsing in her throat.
Mr. Jay's nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath.

"Judge Badger," he said, "I appeal to you as a man dedicated to
justice. This man is making crude, slanderous insinuations. Will you
warn him of the consequences?"

"You're a killer, Mr. Jay," Tesno said. "Persia knows that. Sam Lester
knows it. But why did you kill Duke Parker? You had already secretly
taken control of Tunneltown away from him."

"Jack," Persia said in a strange voice, "what are you trying to do to
me?"

"I'm making you see the truth," he said. He confronted Mr. Jay again
and went on without pause. "Duke Parker was trying to blackjack himself
back into control, wasn't he, Mr. Jay? Unless you wrote off the debt
he owed you, he was going to expose your plan to operate Tunneltown in
a wide-open way that would slow down Vickers' work. That would have
ruined you in railroad circles. So you killed him--or had someone do it
for you."

"No!" Persia made as if to rise. "I'm not going to listen to any more
of this."

"Tell her, Sam," Tesno said. "You must know the truth."

"Sam...." Persia said.

Sam Lester sat down beside her, took her hand. He said nothing at all.

Tesno hammered on mercilessly. "Was Duke Parker killed by a bullet,
Sam? Was a log skidded over him to conceal the wound?"

"Tesno, for god's sake, have a little consideration for her!" pleaded
Sam.

"By letting her testify in behalf of her husband's murderer?" Tesno
said, looming over him. "Suppose _you_ have a little consideration for
her! Duke Parker's body can be exhumed. Persia is going to want that
now, unless you tell her the truth. Spare her that, Sam."

Persia sat with her head bowed, her eyes fixed on Sam's stubby hand
that covered her own. "Tell me, Sam," she said faintly. "Was he
murdered? Just say yes or no."

"Shut up, Sam!" Mr. Jay snapped. "Don't you see what he's trying to do?"

"I've tried to get you away from here," Sam said to Persia, "get you
out of this--"

"Say it!" Persia demanded.

Sam turned his froglike face up toward Mr. Jay. "It's all going to come
out, anyhow," he said. "Yes, Persia. Duke was murdered. Madrid shot
him. I swear I didn't know about it till it was over. Mr. Jay sent me
up into the woods where Duke's body was. He said to help Madrid run a
log over it, make sure it was ... torn up."

Mr. Jay seemed almost unable to speak. "This is a conspiracy!" he said
in a choked voice. "Everyone here is determined to ... to discredit me."

Persia had buried her face in her hands. Now she looked up at him
in horror. "I shall tell the truth in court," she said, controlling
herself with a great effort. "You planned to have Willie killed on the
road, and I shall say so."

Mr. Jay merely glared in reply. He was tired and sick and weak with
anger. He made a feeble effort to shake off Keef O'Hara and Mr. Parris,
each of whom had taken him by an arm.

"Take him to his rooms," Tesno said. "See that there's a guard outside
his door."

Persia had buried her head against Sam Lester. Tesno wanted to say
something soft and sympathetic now, but he knew it would sound
ridiculous. Sam Lester looked up at him expressionlessly.

"I'm going to take her away from here," Sam said.

Tesno nodded. "Don't either of you leave the county," he said tersely
and turned on his heel.

Judge Badger caught his elbow. "This man wants to speak to you."

Tesno hadn't noticed the little rat-faced man, who must have just
arrived. He stepped forward importantly.

"Madrid just bought a horse at the livery. _Bought_ it, Mr. Tesno. He
just rode out of town. Took the road to the camp. He's riding with
saddlebags and a blanket roll."

Tesno hurried toward the door. As he reached it, Persia was suddenly
behind him, calling to him, dabbing frantically at her face with a
handkerchief.

"Jack wait. I was so wrong!"

"When _you_ get hurt, you're wrong," he said, turning angrily.

"You're cruel," she said. "I'm glad you're cruel. You've made me see--"

"I'm in a hurry, Persia."

"Jack, don't let it end for us. I need you. I think you need me."

"What we need, we can't have," he said with soft and incisive
bitterness. "We need Willie Silverknife alive."

He jerked open the door and strode into the sunlight.




XXIII


Tesno seized one of the saddle horses in front of the building and
swung across town at a canter. He got no glimpse of Madrid till he was
through the woods and at the edge of Vickers' camp; then he saw him far
ahead on the wide, slow-climbing road that led to Runaway Mountain and
the tunnel. Madrid looked back, urged his horse ahead a bit faster, and
jogged out of sight around a bend.

Tesno reined into the empty camp and rode through it at a gallop. By
taking the steep mule trail up the side of the gulch, he would avoid
the possibility of being ambushed at that bend. If Madrid waited there,
Tesno could cut him off. If not, he would at least close up some of
the distance and have a chance of overtaking him before he reached the
timber on the mountain top.

He found the horse willing and sure-footed on the narrow, twisting
trail, and he gave the animal its head. The climb took longer than he
had expected. But when at last the horse strained up the final steep
ascent onto graded roadbed, Madrid was a scant hundred yards ahead.
Tesno yelled at him to halt, drew his revolver, fired a wild shot.

Madrid continued at a trot. He rode straight to the gaping black arch
of the tunnel, then veered to the left into the road that began its
climb to the summit here. Tesno prodded his horse forward at an easy
lope. He reached the road with Madrid directly above him, hardly within
effective revolver range. Madrid wheeled his horse around, whipping a
Winchester from its boot. He quickly aimed and fired.

Tesno's horse dropped in its tracks, making a sort of uncompleted
somersault, pitching him forward out of the saddle. He landed painfully
on a shoulder, rolled to his feet. His revolver was gone; he combed
the ground with his eyes, didn't see it. A bullet drove past his head
close enough so he could hear its angry buzz. Madrid was plunging down
the road toward him, firing the rifle as he came. There was nothing to
do but run, no place to run but into the tunnel. Another bullet tore
splinters from a shoring timber at the portal as Tesno darted inside.

The tunnel was deserted, the crew in town. The arc lights that usually
lighted the shaft had been turned off. A lantern glowed just within the
portal; Tesno stooped and turned it out. He ran on into the darkness.
He looked back to see Madrid framed in the arch of the portal, getting
down from his horse, stooping to pick up something. _My gun_, Tesno
thought.

Madrid raised his rifle then and fired blindly, whimsically, into the
tunnel. Tesno leaped to the left wall and threw himself headlong.
Madrid rapidly emptied the Winchester and threw it aside. Tesno hurried
on. The dead end of the tunnel in the middle of a mountain was a hell
of a place to die, he thought. He was aware now of a light somewhere
ahead, too dim and distant to silhouette him. It must be back a way on
the bench, he thought. If he could get up there, find a weapon, that
would be the place to make a stand.

He looked back again. Madrid had found a lantern and lighted it. He
held it above his head as he walked forward. His revolver gleamed in
his other hand.

A minute later, Tesno reached the bench. This rose fourteen feet above
the floor of the tunnel. Above it, the eight-foot shaft of the heading
extended another forty or fifty feet into the mountain. The timbers
resting on the bench had to be replaced as it was removed; so it was
cut away in slices and presented a vertical face. A ladder stood
against this. Tesno scaled it and drew it up after him.

His first impulse was to put out the lantern that burned up here,
but he decided against this. He turned it up brighter and moved it
to the very edge of the bench against one wall. Using his hat and a
tool box, he quickly rigged a shield so that light was thrown below
the bench while the top of it was relatively dark. There were tools
up here--picks, pry bars, drills, sledges--that could be used as
weapons. He looked around for dynamite but saw none. Then he found a
sixteen-foot pole, probably used in maneuvering timbers into place, and
suddenly he had a plan.

He shoved the ladder forward so that two rungs projected over the edge
of the bench. He then lowered the pole, leaning it against the face of
the bench with its end in view beside the ladder.

Madrid had been approaching slowly, holding the lantern high, stopping
every few yards to shine it from side to side. He saw Tesno now--or
more likely the shadows he threw on the tunnel walls as he moved.
Anyhow, he came forward swiftly now, the revolver raised for a shot
whenever he saw a solid target.

Tesno retreated from the edge, bending low. He selected a percussion
drill as a weapon--an eight-foot steel shaft with a sharp chisel point.
Dragging this beside him, he crawled to a position near the ladder and
lay parallel to it. He watched the light from Madrid's lantern move
along the timbers at the top of the tunnel, saw it come to a halt a few
yards in front of the bench.

Madrid wasn't likely to come barging up on the bench. A surer way would
be to climb to the level of the bench a few yards in front of it. This
would bring the whole upper surface into view--and easy revolver range.
But in any case, he would have to have the ladder.

Tesno lay motionless, gripping the long, heavy drill, watching the
three inches of pole that stuck above the edge of the bench. Moving
shadows on the tunnel wall told him that Madrid had set down his
lantern and was coming quietly forward.

The pole-end moved, disappeared, reappeared between the rungs of the
ladder. Tesno rose to a crouch. This was the trap. Madrid was taking
the bait. For this moment, Tesno knew exactly where the man was.
Reaching with a sixteen foot pole is a two-handed job; Madrid's gun
would be in its holster. Grasping the drill like a spear, Tesno leaped
over the edge.

Madrid swung the pole awkwardly and too late. The sharp steel point of
the drill was already at his chest with Tesno's weight and the force
of a fourteen-foot drop behind it. He uttered a strange muffled cry as
Tesno pitched past him.

Tesno sprawled flat on the uneven floor, rolled to one side, and got
painfully to his feet. Madrid lay on his back with the drill pinning
him to the tunnel floor. He was dead when Tesno reached him.

       *       *       *       *       *

A great crowd filled the street in front of the hotel. Tesno tied
Madrid's horse and elbowed his way to the entrance. Ben Vickers touched
his elbow.

"Jay shot himself," Ben said. "Seems they didn't think to search his
room. He had a gun in there. You overtake Madrid?"

"In the tunnel, Ben. Not a pretty sight."

Sam Lester came out of the lobby. He turned his thick lenses up at
Tesno and said, "No reason for Persia and me to stay in the county now.
I'm taking her away." He moved on.

"Seems like those two will get off easy," Ben said. "Then again maybe
they won't. They have each other."




XXIV


The big boiler finally reached the east portal. A compressor was set
up. An air line was run over the mountain so that automatic drills
could be used in the west bore, too. Ben Vickers paid a bonus to
everybody who worked for him when progress exceeded the necessary daily
footage. The work spurted ahead.

There were unforseeable problems and delays, of course. Snow fell to
a depth of twenty feet. Snow sheds had to be hurriedly built over the
dump trucks. A landslide carried away part of the approach to the east
portal. Supply wagons bogged down on the way up from Ellensburg, first
in snow, then in mud. Much of the road had to be paved with logs and
planks. When enough track was laid so that supplies could be brought in
by train, a bridge washed out and freight wagons had to be pressed into
service again.

There were more accidents in the tunnel, mostly caused by premature or
delayed blasts. A dozen more men lost their lives. Rock was loosened
above the line of the cut, and days were lost. Fumes from blasting
became unbearable, and there was more delay while the ventilating
system was altered. Cloudbursts flooded first the east portal, then the
west. A dump train engine jumped the tracks, and its boiler burst. The
strata of the basaltic trap rock was unpredictable; in spite of every
precaution, there were frequent cave-ins.

But morale was high. The weak and the discontented and the lazy
were weeded out; the tough and the determined stayed on. A spirited
competition developed between the crews working from opposite sides of
the mountain. Slowly, hour by hour, foot by foot, the lost days were
made up.

On a May morning eleven days before the deadline, Ben Vickers stood in
the hazy saffron glow of the arc lights and watched the drilling crew
come toward him from the bench, two hundred yards away. Ben studied
his watch. For weeks, both crews had been jarred by blasts in the other
bore; so it was necessary to schedule every shot now and alert the
drillers on the other side.

The crew reached Ben and lined itself beside him along the timbered
wall. The fuse man came jogging along a minute or two later. The charge
roared and grumbled. The earth trembled. A cloud of dust and rubble
tumbled out of the heading. Much of this was caught by the fans and
pulled into vent pipes; but the acrid outer edges of it rolled down the
bore to where the men stood. And then, while the area of the explosion
was still obscured, the dust cloud began to spew human figures,
running, coughing, cheering.

Ben Vickers gaped and blinked and tried to bring up a yell of triumph
that came out a kind of tired sob. These were workmen from the west
bore. The wall between had crumbled away with the blast. Runaway
Mountain had its tunnel.

A few days later, Ben and Tesno stood together in a crowd gathered near
the portal to watch the first train pull through. The train crew waved.
The workmen and townfolk waved back and cheered. Then, sadly, they
watched the cars gather speed on the down-grade toward Ellensburg.

"How do you feel, Ben?" Tesno asked.

"Old," Ben grumbled. "Too old even to go on a drunk. What will it be
now for you, Jack? You finally going to get to that ranch?"

Tesno grinned his twisted, one-dimple grin. He pulled an envelope from
a pocket. "Got this the other day. An offer from James J. Hill."

Ben was impressed. "The old Empire Builder himself?"

"He doesn't give details, but it seems he's going to be laying track up
one side of a river while a rival road lays it up the other. Seems like
it will be a race."

Ben twitched his head doubtfully. "Bound to be trouble."

"Bound to be," Tesno said.