Belle laughed. “Sure. But I’m not. You––you’re irresistible! And I don’t know you’re an officer.”
This went over the sheriff’s head and was wasted, though Aleck Douglas pulled down his mouth at the corners as though he was afraid he might smile if he were not careful.
The sheriff took up his bridle reins, preparing to lead his horse over to a post and tie him. He glanced at Belle and saw that she had a six-shooter in her hand and a glitter in her eyes. Quite naturally he hesitated. Then, at a perfectly plain signal from the gun, he turned his palms toward her at a level with his shoulders.
“You needn’t tie up. Crawl into the saddle and drift.”
“I’ve got a search warrant––”
“You can keep it and show it to Tom. And get off this ranch just as quick as that horse can take you. I’ll have you both arrested for trespassing. I’m not taking your word for anything, you see. I don’t know anything about your warrant––hey, Riley!” This to the cook, who came, taking steps as long as his legs would let him, and swinging a damp dishcloth in one moist red hand.
“Riley, here’s a man claims he’s the sheriff and that he’s got a warrant to search the ranch. I don’t believe a word of it, and I’ve ordered him off the place. I wouldn’t for the world resist an officer of the law––put your hands up a little higher, Mr. Man!––but when Tom ain’t home no stranger is going to come snooping around here if I can stop him. Ain’t that right, Riley?”
“That’s right, Belle,” Riley acquiesced, working his oversized Adam’s apple convulsively. (Riley, by the way, would just as readily have approved of murder if Belle had asked for his approval.)
“Well, you’re a witness that I’m from Missouri. I’ve told this man to go tell his troubles to Tom. If he’s honest he’ll do it. If he don’t go in about ten seconds, I’m going to throw a bullet through his hat. Then if he hangs around, I shall shoot him in his left leg just about six inches above the knee. I can do it, can’t I, Riley?”
“Well, now, you shore can, Belle!” Riley nodded his head emphatically. “If you say six, I’d shore gamble a year’s wages it won’t be five, or seven. Six inches above his knee goes, if you say six.”
“All right. I’m just defending the ranch when Tom’s gone. You hear me, Mr. Man. Now, you git!”
The sheriff turned and opened his mouth to protest, and Belle shot the promised bullet through his hat crown. The sheriff ducked and made a wild scramble for the stirrup.
“Open your mouth again and I’ll be awfully tempted to shoot that crooked tooth out of it,” Belle observed. “And in ten seconds, remember, you’re going to get––”
The sheriff still had two of the ten seconds to spare when he left, Aleck Douglas following him glumly.
“It’s him, all right. It’s the sheriff, Belle,” Riley informed her, while they watched the two clatter up the road to where the real grade began. “What’s eatin’ on ’em? Likely he did have a search warrant.”
“He can use it, after I’m through. Old Scotty is trailing some rustled stock, they claim. They came here looking for hides. You keep an eye out, Riley, and see if they keep going. I guess they will––they’ll go after Tom. I’m going to have a look at those cowhides in the old shed.”
“Better let me,” Riley offered. “It ain’t any job for a woman nohow. You watch the trail and I’ll look.”
Belle would not even consider the proposition. The Lorrigan reputation never had troubled her much,––but it sent her now to the shed where hides were kept stored until the hide buyer made his next annual visit through the country. She did not believe that she would find any brand save the various combinations of the NL monogram, but she meant to make sure before any stranger was given access to the place.
The job was neither easy nor pleasant, but she did it thoroughly. Riley, roosting meditatively on the top rail of the corral where he could watch the road down the bluff, craned his long neck inquiringly toward her when she returned.
“Nothing but NL stuff, just as I thought,” said Belle, holding her hands as far away from her face as possible. “I knew Tom wouldn’t have any stolen hides on the place––but it was best to make sure.”
“No ma’am, he wouldn’t. I’m shore surprised they’d come and try to find any. Looks bad to me, Belle. Looks to me like somebody is shore tryin’ to start somethin’. There’s plenty in the Black Rim would like to see Tom railroaded to the pen––plenty. Looks to me like they’re aimin’ to pin something on him. No, sir, I don’t like it. Uh course,” he went on, letting himself loose-jointedly to the ground, “they couldn’t get nothing on Tom––not unless they framed something. But I wouldn’t put it a-past ’em to do it. No, ma’am, I wouldn’t.”
“Your bread’s burning, Riley. I can smell it. Don’t you never think they’ll frame on Tom. They may try it––but that’s as far as they’ll get. They don’t want to start anything with the Lorrigans!”
“Well, I left the oven door open. She ain’t burning to hurt. Yuh see, Scotty Douglas, he’s religious and he don’t never pack a gun. Them kind’s bad to tangle up with; awful bad. There ain’t nothing much a man can do with them religious birds. Them not being armed, you can’t shoot––it’s murder. And that kinda ties a man’s hands, as yuh might say. They always take advantage of it, invariable. No, ma’am, it looks bad.”
“It’ll look worse––for them that tries any funny business with this outfit,” Belle assured him. “Go along and ’tend to your baking. You know I hate burnt bread. I’m going to drive over and see what they’re up to.”
She untied Rosa and Subrosa, and because she was in a hurry she permitted Riley to hold them by the bits while she climbed in, got the lines firmly in one hand and her blacksnake in the other. Not often did she deign to accept assistance, and Riley was all aquiver with gratified vanity at this mark of her favor.
“Turn ’em loose––and get to that bread!” she cried, and circled the pintos into the road. “You, Sub! Cut that out, now––settle down! Rosa! Stead-dy, I ain’t any Ben Hur pulling off a chariot race, remember!”
At a gallop they took the first sandy slope of the climb, and Belle let them go. They were tough––many’s the time they had hit the level on top of the ridge without slowing to a walk on the way up. They had no great load to pull, and if it pleased them to lope instead of trot, Belle would never object.
As she sat jouncing on the seat of a buckboard with rattly spokes in all of the four wheels and a splintered dashboard where Subrosa landed his heels one day when he had backed before he kicked, one felt that she would have made a magnificent charioteer. Before she had gone half a mile her hair was down and whipping behind her like a golden pennant. Her big range hat would have gone sailing had it not been tied under her chin with buckskin strings. Usually she sang as she hurtled through space, but to-day the pintos missed her voice.
Five miles out on the range she overtook the sheriff and Aleck Douglas riding to the round-up. Aleck Douglas seldom rode faster than a jogging trot, and the sheriff was not particularly eager for his encounter with Tom Lorrigan. For that matter, no sheriff had ever been eager to encounter a Lorrigan. The Lorrigan family had always been counted a hazard in the office of the sheriff, though of a truth the present generation had remained quiescent so far and the law had not heretofore reached its arm toward them.
The two men looked back, saw Belle coming and parted to let her pass. Belle yelled to her team and went by with never a glance toward either, and the two stared after her without a word until she had jounced down into a shallow draw and up the other side, the pintos never slowing their lope.
“Well, I’m darned!” ejaculated the sheriff. His name,