The Maverick Queen ebook

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER I

IT was almost dark, that day in early June, when the stage rolled down off the Wind River Mountains into the notorious mining town of South Pass, Wyoming. Lincoln Bradway, a cowboy more at home on a horse than in a vehicle, alighted stiff and cramped from his long ride, glad indeed to reach his destination. He had not liked either the curious male passengers or the hard-featured women. With his heavy bag he stepped down upon the board sidewalk, and asked a passer-by if there was a hotel in town.

“South Pass brags of twenty hotels, stranger, with a saloon to match each one of ’em. Take your choice,” returned the man, with a laugh that derided Bradway’s ignorance.

Bradway looked down a long wide street, lined by two straggling rows of dim yellow lights. He heard the tramp and shuffle of many boots, the murmur of voices, loud laughs, the clink of glasses and coins, the whirr of roulette wheels. The sidewalks were crowded. The visitor sensed an atmosphere similar to that of the Kansas border towns, to Abiline and Hays City. They had passed their wild prime, but South Pass was in its heyday. The newcomer went by a number of hotel signs garish on high board fronts, and finally found a lodginghouse away from the center of town. The proprietor was a pleasant-faced and hospitable woman who asked for her fee in advance. The clean little room, smelling of fresh-cut pine lumber, satisfied Lincoln, and he paid for a week’s rent. The keen-eyed woman observed his roll of greenbacks and favored him with a more attentive look.

“Where you hail from, cowboy?” she asked.

“Nebraska. How’re things here?”

“Humph! Lively enough without any more fire-eyed cowboys. You want work?”

“Not much.”

“I reckoned that. Cowboys with a roll like you just flashed usually don’t want work till the roll’s gone, and in South Pass that’ll not take long. I advise you to keep it hid.”

“Thanks for the hunch, lady, but I can look out for myself.”

“I didn’t miss the way you pack that big gun of yours.”

“Gosh! you have sharp eyes, lady, and handsome ones, too,” he replied mildly. “I’m a starved hombre. Where’ll I eat?”

The landlady looked pleased. “Try the Chink, half a block in town,” she offered. “He can cook, and cowboys patronize him. China Bar, he calls his shack, but he doesn’t sell any hard liquor.”

“Many of my kind hereabouts, lady?” continued the tall Nebraskan, casually.

“Not of your kind, cowboy,” she retorted, and both words and look appeared to be complimentary. “But there are a plenty of cowboys in western Wyoming. Outfits all down the Sweetwater River, a few big, and lots of little ones. It’s the coming cattle country.”

“So I was told... Lady, did you ever hear of a cowboy named Jimmy Weston?”

“I should say so, stranger! Jimmy used to stay with me. A mighty nice boy. Pity he... say, who might you happen to be?”

“Well, I might happen to be anybody. But it’s enough to say that Jimmy was my pard.”

“Pard?... Could you be the pard he was always bragging about? Linc something?” she queried, without troubling to hide her keen interest.

“I am the pard, lady, Lincoln Bradway. And I’ve come out here to find out what happened to Jimmy.”

“He’s dead.”

“Yes, I know that. Word came to us back in Nebraska. But I’m not satisfied with what I heard.”

“If you’re smart, stranger, you’ll keep quiet about your curiosity,” she rejoined, her tone and manner altering subtly.

“Thanks, lady. I don’t aim to make any sudden noise. But when I do it’ll be loud... Were you a friend of Jimmy’s? Can you tell me anything?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m sorry. You spoke sort of kindly of him. I had a feeling...”

“Stranger, I liked Jimmy Weston. He was just about the salt of the earth, and it was hard for me to believe he was shot in a card game, for cheating.”

Bradway made a swift, angry gesture that silenced the woman. He leaned toward her. “Lady, that is a damned lie. Jimmy Weston never turned a crooked card in his life. I know it. His friends back there would swear to it, and I’m out here to get at the bottom of this deal, whatever it is.”

“Everybody in South Pass believes the–the talk,” said the woman nervously.

“Did you?”

Her hurried nod did not deceive her lodger. He left her then, convinced that she knew more than she cared to divulge. It might be well to cultivate her and win her confidence. He was playing in luck. Here at his very arrival in South Pass he had hit upon something that concerned his old friend, in whose interest he had journeyed so far. Lincoln Bradway was not too surprised, however. In countless previous situations, where he had been deeply concerned, things had gravitated his way, right from the start. Many a time he and Jimmy Weston in the old days had played their hunches and pressed their luck together. Now Jimmy, wild youngster that he had been, was gone. Bradway looked away from the silent woman, out of the window. Slowly his face hardened and a shadow seemed to darken his gray eyes. He had a job to do. Jim Weston’s name had to be cleared. And someone had to answer for his death. Well, time was awasting.

Bradway found the Chinaman’s place, a tiny restaurant with a counter and a bench, and several tables covered with oilcloth. Three cowboys were emerging as the Nebraskan approached the door. Lincoln stepped aside into the shadow as they came out. They smelled of horses and dust and rum, mixed with an odor that it took a moment for him to recognize. It was the aroma of sage. The third and last cowboy was tall, lean and set of face, tawny- haired, a ragged, genuine gun-packing range rider, if Linc had ever seen one.

“Aw, Mel, you’re a sorehaid,” growled one of his companions, a short bow-legged youth, somewhat unsteady from an oversupply of liquor. “Lucy gave you a raw deal, and no wonder. But ’cause of that an’ you bein’ sore ain’t no reason why Monty heah an’ me cain’t open our mouths.”

“Hell, it ain’t!” flashed the cowboy called Mel, fiercely. “Blab all you want, Smeade, but not about that. Not heah in town!”

“An’ why’n the hell not? Jest among ourselves. You make me sick. Even if it’s never been admitted among us where an’ for why them mavericks went, we know, an’ you know damn wal, Mel Thatcher, that they...”

“No! I never admitted it,” interrupted Thatcher, “There’s some things you can’t talk about on this range. Go on, you fool, and you’ll get what Jimmy Weston got!”

They passed on down the sidewalk, leaving Lincoln standing there in the shadow, transfixed at the mention of Jimmy’s name. He would recognize Mel Thatcher when he met him again.

Profoundly thoughtful, the Nebraskan went into the restaurant. While waiting for his meal he tried to separate into detail the things he had heard. The name Lucy? That name had occurred more than once in Jimmy’s infrequent letters. Whoever that girl was, his old pard had been sweet on her. And somehow she had given this cowboy Thatcher a raw deal. Perhaps she had given Jimmy the same. Why? Maybe she was no good. That was one of the things he would have to investigate. Then there was the implied peril of speaking out loud concerning a certain something on that range?–Something to do with mavericks!–It so happened that an unbranded calf had been one of Jimmy’s weaknesses. Like most open range riders he had been convinced that a maverick was any man’s property. As a matter of fact that was true according to range custom everywhere; but it was a law that only cowmen and cowboys who owned cattle could burn their brand on a maverick. If they did not own any stock the appropriation of mavericks made them cattle thieves. Lincoln had heard that the ranchers of western Wyoming, hoping to induce rustlers to give their ranges a wide berth, had adopted the ruthless practice of hanging a cattle thief without formality.

Bradway concluded that it was possible, though improbable, that Weston might have had something to do with mavericks. In such case, however, it was hardly conceivable that he would have been shot while sitting at a card table. The report had been spread, he surmised, to cover murder. Thatcher’s warning to his companion, Smeade, that he would get what Jimmy Weston got!–There was something ominous about that warning. To the man from Nebraska that warning was the clue to the mystery he had come to South Pass to solve.

After having appeased his hunger and made a fruitless effort to be friendly with the far from loquacious Chinaman, Bradway got up, paid for his meal and went out into the street. It was quite dark and the air was thin and cold, with a tang of mountain snow. Lincoln remembered how Jimmy had raved about the Wind River Mountains, and how he himself had watched from the stage to see them appear as if by magic out of the haze of distance, and grow and grow during two days of travel until the jagged white peaks, magnificent and aloof, pierced the blue sky. Little as he had seen of this western Wyoming country, he could easily have been captivated by it but for the grim mission which had brought him from his home.

He walked up through and beyond the center of the wide-open town. Then, crossing the street, he started back on the other side. This time he heard the babbling of a brook which evidently passed behind and paralleled the row of unpainted houses on that side. Lincoln peered into every open door. He scrutinized every passer-by that he encountered. Miners in red shirts, black- frocked and wide-hatted gamblers, flashily dressed women, cowboys and ranchers, teamsters and sheepmen, well-dressed travelers and ragged tramps, all made up that passing throng. A few Indians lolled in the shadows, smoking the white man’s cigarettes. Stores and hotels appeared busy with customers, and the saloons were thronged with noisy crowds. Once a gunshot penetrated the din, but nobody in that milling crowd seemed to pay any attention to it.

Bradway’s careful observation confirmed his earlier opinion that South Pass was indeed a wide-open mining town at the height of its prosperity and youth, as raw and violent as Hays City, as flush as Benton, the mushroom town that flourished during the building of the Union Pacific. He had seen both of these border towns in all their frontier turbulences and color. He did not need to be told that law and order had not yet come to South Pass, that gold was to be had for the digging, or stealing, or gambling for, that vice was rampant and life held cheap.

After his survey of the town Bradway began methodically to enter each public place, from the canvas dens at the foot of the street, to the stores and saloons and gambling halls that bordered the sidewalk. He spent an hour of most diligent search before he again came upon Mel Thatcher and his two pals. Thatcher was standing beside a table where his two friends were playing cards with two other cowboys. There was more liquor on the table than money. Smeade appeared the worse for drink and his luck clearly was bad.

Thatcher’s lean visage wore a worried look, but it showed none of the heat of dissipation that was reflected in the faces of the others. Lincoln watched them a while. He knew cowboys. He had known a thousand in his time. They were all more or less alike, yet there were exceptions. Thatcher seemed to be one of these. The Nebraskan liked his looks. Thatcher was too young to have had experience that matched his own, but it was evident that he was no novice at anything pertaining to cowboy life. He packed a gun, but did not wear it below his hip, as was the practice of most gun-throwers.

When Lincoln approached this cowboy he was yielding to an instinct, deep and inevitable, for something had told him that here was a hombre who might supply the answers to some of his questions.

“Howdy, Thatcher,” he said, coolly, as the other wheeled at his touch. “I’ve been looking for you particular hard.”

“Hell you say?” returned Thatcher, with angry insolence. “And for why, mister smart-aleck?”

“I reckon you better return the compliment before you go shooting off your chin.”

“Yeah?” The cowboy straightened up, turned squarely to face the stranger beside him. Then he said: “Never saw you in my life. I’d have remembered. So you must be looking up the wrong man.”

“Maybe so. I hope not. Come aside for a minute,” replied Lincoln, and he led the curious cowboy away from the players who did not seem to be aware of the interruption. “No offense, Thatcher,” continued the Nebraskan, in a low and earnest voice. “I’m from over Nebraska way. Name is Linc Bradway. Ever hear it?”

“Not that I can recall.”

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