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Meadowlark Basin

<h2>CHAPTER NINETEEN</h2> <h3>"NEXT TIME, REMEMBER—BUTCH PACKS TWO GUNS!"</h3> Bob came out fairly licking his chops over the enormous supper he had just gorged; took in the situation at a glance, hovered there helplessly for a space and announced that he was going back in and have a game or two of high-five with the boys. He kicked Bud's foot in passing; a hint which Bud could interpret as he pleased, though what Bob meant to signal was his intention to guard against treachery from the house. Kid asked Bud how he felt, received a mumbled assurance that he was all right, and rolled and lighted another cigarette. A tactful companion was Kid Kern upon occasion; one who knew the Indian art of absolute passivity. It shamed Bud a bit to know that if he had been really suffering as he pretended to be, Kid would have sat right there all night if necessary, with never a complaint. Then it came—the far-off clupet-clupety-clupet of a shod horse loping up the lane. Bud moved his long body a bit, drawing up one knee for leverage when the moment came to spring erect, and shifting his forehead so that his left hand pressed palm downward on the ground. "How's she comin', Bud?" Kid poised his cigarette between two stained fingers while he peered down at Bud through the bright starlight. "Worse? Better let me get yuh that powder." "No use—it's easing up—by spells." In the pauses Bud was listening, gauging the swiftness of the approach. Kid, he could see, had not yet caught the sound that had come clearly to Bud's ear pressed against the sod. His heart began to thump heavily, high in his chest. He could feel his face grow hot with the uprush of blood, and knew it was not fear that rioted within his body, but battle fever instead; the excitement that sends hot young blood leaping when conflict is near. "Somebody comin'. Butch, I guess." Kid ground his cigarette stub under his heel as he rose. The action and the announcement together gave Bud the excuse to rise also to a half-crouching position, poised on the balls of his feet like a runner waiting for the signal to go; a posture that would pass in the starlight as the squatting of a man whose interest is not sufficient to bring him to his feet. A full minute they listened to the nearing hoof beats, then the dim outline of a horseman showed in the lane. "Yeah, that's Butch. I'll go open the gate—er—no, that horse of his is broke to gates, come to think of it." Bud said nothing. He was watching Butch Cassidy sidle up to the gate post, lean and push back the heavy wooden bolt, nip through as the gate swung open, catch it midway and sidle back, pushing it shut as he went. The horse stood quiet while the bar slid into place, then Butch came riding toward them. "What's takin' place here? One of them garden parties yuh read about?" Butch laughed and swung a leg over the cantle to dismount. "Yes. It's my party, Butch." Bud was up and standing so close behind him that Kid, ten feet away and in front of them, could not have shot without hitting both. "Keep your hands up—just like that." He reached forward, twitched Butch's gun from its holster and thrust it into his own. "Why—what's wrong with Butch?" Kid's voice was surprised, but it had not lost its friendly note. "Nothing much, only he shot a couple of men and stole a few thousand dollars out of Palmer's cow pasture, and the blame rests on Jelly and me until I take this pelican in and return the money." "Aw, he's full of prunes, Kid. Don't you b'lieve a word of that." Butch stood with his hands raised—any man will who feels the muzzle of a gun in his ribs—and stared at Kid. "I ain't been near Palmer's place. Are you goin' t' stand fer this kind of a hold-up, Kid, right in yore dooryard?" "I dunno, Butch, till I see how she lays." Kid's tone took on a silky smoothness. "Seems funny Bud would take the trouble to ride 'way over here just fer a josh to hold you up and accuse you of a thing like that. Must be a little something to it." "He's crazy, that's all." "I suppose you didn't leave a couple of horses tied in a draw just across the road from Palmer's fence corner! I suppose I didn't find your tracks, heading this way, when Bob and I struck out to overhaul you? I happen to know how you pumped Skookum to get all the information you could. He doesn't know how much he told you, but it was enough to make you feel sure you could put your hands right on the money the bank lost! Well, I took Delkin and some others out there, so they beat you to it, Butch. The trouble is, they left a lot that belonged to Palmer, and that's what you packed off with you after you'd shot Bat Johnson and Ed White. They were after it too, I suppose. Some of our boys in town scared them till they beat it out of town, and they caught you there at the ledge. You downed them both, and got away with the stuff. "Kid, I don't think for a minute that you'd go in on a deal of this kind—but I'll bet a horse Butch never gave you a chance! That's playing real square with you, isn't it?" "No, Bud, it ain't. I never dreamed Butch would pull a thing like this, and him workin' fer me. I hope you don't look on me as bein' capable of rusty work like that, Bud." He took a step forward, then halted. "How about this? Think you c'n trust me to help yuh go through Butch and see if he's got that money? How much was it? If he's got it with him, by Harry, he'll come clean. I hate t' turn in one of my own men, but I'll do it—I'll turn him over to the sheriff myself if there's a scrap of evidence t' hold him on. Can I come and look in his slicker, Bud?" "I wish you would, Kid." Bud caught Butch by the slack of his coat and pulled him backwards, away from the horse. "I trust you, yes. Sure, I do! But I'll put a bullet through you, Kid, if you try a double-cross." "That's all right. Can't blame you, Bud. Butch working for me, it does look kinda leery around here. But you can't do two things at once, very handy, and I'm damned if I'll stand for any man of mine pulling off a stunt like this and giving the Frying Pan a black eye with my neighbors." "Go ahead and look, why don'tcha?" Butch challenged mockingly. "Sure, you'll try 'n' keep yore standin', Kid—you ain't got a man that don't know you'd quit him cold in a pinch, and save yore own bacon! Go ahead an' look!" "You bet I'll look!" Kid picked up the reins, ran his hand reassuringly along the shoulder of the brown horse, grasped the horn and gave the saddle a little shake, and began untying Butch's slicker from behind the cantle, his fingers probing into the folds. "How much was it, Bud?" "I don't know. It was gold, and there must have been several thousand dollars, at a rough guess. Nobody meddled with it—except the man that took it. Three or four regular coin bags, there ought to be." Kid pulled off the slicker and slapped it on the ground, wide open and empty. Butch carried no saddle pockets, and there was no place on the saddle where a package of any size could be hidden. Butch laughed unpleasantly. "There ain't a darned thing, Bud." Kid turned and looked at the two. There was an awkward silence. "Well, ain't somebody goin' to apologize?" Butch still had that mocking tone. "Bud's had a pipe dream, that's all. Now, I'll tell yuh where I been, and Bud c'n prove it easy enough. I been over to the Meddalark. I admit I went over there t' see Lark about gittin' a job. I stayed to dinner, and all the boys is gone but that pilgrim; yore black horses is in the bronch corral, Bud, and the kid's ridin' a pinto pony around he calls Huckleberry. Need any more proof, or does that convince yuh that I was there, all right?" Butch's tone was arrogant, though he was careful to make no offensive movement. "Oh, you were there, no doubt. That doesn't let you out, Butch. Tell me where you were between four and five this afternoon!" "Awn the road home," Butch drawled. Bud twitched off Butch's hat and held it up in his left hand so that the edge of the brim was silhouetted against the stars. "Look here, Kid. I suppose he'll say he bit that nick out of his hatbrim! Ever see a prettier bullet mark? Just about the size a .45 would make as nearly as I can tell in this light. Just for curiosity, Butch, how did you get that?" Bud's voice, that had been merely grim and unyielding, rang with triumph. "None of yore damn' business. Is that plain enough, or shall I spell it?" "No," said Bud softly, "you needn't spell it, Butch." Followed another silence, which Kid broke placatingly. "If Butch done what you think he done, Bud, I'm after him like a wolf. But if this is all the proof you got, why—you ain't got any, that's all." He stopped on the brink of saying more and looked from one to the other. "Yeah. You ain't got any," Butch echoed, with that same faint mockery in his voice. "Goin' to hold me here all night? Me and my horse is hungry." "Didn't anybody see him at Palmer's?" Kid asked doubtfully. And when Bud shook his head, Kid made a similar gesture. "Honest, Bud, I don't see what you're goin' to do about it," he said. "I'm with you if you've got any proof. But—" "I'll get it," Bud declared harshly, and lowered his gun. "All right, Butch, this time you've got the best of it. But remember, I'll get that proof, and I'll get you. And I don't mean that I'll kill you, either." "What the hell do I care what you mean?" Butch took down his arms, rubbing his muscles unthinkingly. "Only—if kids are bound to git underfoot, they're liable to git stepped on. Yuh goin' to give me my gun back? Or are yuh scared to?" Bud gave him his gun haughtily, butt first according to the range code of good manners. Butch slid it into his holster and reached for the bridle reins. "Kid, you spread my slicker so you c'n pick it up off the ground," he said, and pulled the reins up along his horse's neck. He mounted, sat looking down at Bud for a minute, gave a grunt eloquent of tolerant scorn and rode away to the stable at a careless lope. The two stood looking after him until his figure blurred with the deeper shade of the barn. "Bud, I'm sorry it turned out the way it did," Kid said under his breath. "I believe in my soul Butch done it—but what does that prove? I want to warn yuh, though. You've made an enemy there that ain't liable to forgit yuh. It's a darn good thing I happened to be out here with yuh, boy. Butch don't dare pull nothin' underhand when I'm around, but if you'd tackled him alone out here, it maybe wouldn't 'a' turned out so peaceful." He gave a little inarticulate exclamation. "Say, Bud, next time you bump into Butch, remember he packs two guns. He could of got you any time he wanted to t'night. Next time you pull a gun on Butch Cassidy I'd advise yuh as a friend to pull the trigger at the same time. May as well play safe, then it won't be you we'll have to bury." "I suppose that's a friendly tip, and as such I thank you for it, Kid." Bitterness was all that was left to young Bud at that moment. "Yes, and I wouldn't give it to everybody, either. Might as well come along in and have some supper, Bud—now yore headache's cured." But Bud shook his head and said he couldn't swallow a mouthful, so Kid did not urge him. Perhaps he knew what it means when a young man must swallow his pride. Bob came out to them, and all he learned was that they were going back home that night. Once again Kid did not urge Bud to modify his decision; instead, he approved it. "Butch will shore be on the peck, now, and it'll be just as well to side-step. Here he comes—you boys can get your horses out, and I'll keep an eye on Butch. Too bad, but there ain't a thing more I can do, or you either." "No," said Bud dully, "I guess not. I made a fool of myself, that's all." They were riding down the lane before Bud came out of his black mood of depression, or Bob dared open his mouth to ask a question. "It's a cinch he stopped and cached the money somewhere along the way," Bud cried hotly, when they had gone carefully over the whole thing together. "What we have to do now is try and find it." "Yeah, and beat Butch to it," Bob reminded. "Now, I know all this end of the reservation like a book. Butch, he'd hide that money purty close in, I betcha, but not along the trail nowhere. Can't back trail him to-night, but by daylight—" He stopped there for a time. "Tell yuh, Bud, what we better do. Awn a piece here is that crick, and I betcha we could pick up Butch's tracks there where he cut across into the hills. It's about the only place where he could leave the trail without making signs a blind man could read; what's more, it's the only place where he could git into the hills without ridin' an hour er more extry. "What we better do is you go awn home and git some chuck inside yuh, and take a sleep. I'll bed right down by that crick till daybreak, and pick up Butch's back track. I kin jest about read that jasper's mind, Bud. You put Kid wise, and Kid'll be watchin' Butch like a hawk. It'll be kinda funny if Butch gits a chance to ride back here fer a day er two. Right now is when he's got to take a big chance and leave the money where it's at. When you git ready, you come awn back with some grub. Foller the trail we took comin' over, and I'll meet yuh, Bud, right where that spring comes up under them sandstone cliffs. You know—where we watered our horses. They's feed, and we c'n make camp there if we have to. I know where we c'n crawl under a shelf if it storms, even. "So you do that, Bud. It'll save time, and we'll find the dough—never you mind about that!" "If it takes until snow flies, we've got to find it," Bud declared. "Well, I'll tell you when we reach the creek whether I'll do that or not." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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