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  “I think I understand you, though, because I felt something pretty closely related to what you’ve been talking about. I mean to say, that when I saw him first, before I had heard his name, or so much as dreamed what he might be, I had a very chilly feeling. I mean, when I looked him in the face, I had exactly the feeling that comes over you when you feel that someone is staring at the small of your back . . . someone dangerous, a man or a beast . . . it shoots a chill through your spinal marrow, you know.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, I felt that when I faced him. Just as though there were two of him . . . one before me, and one sneaking up behind me.”

  “You phrased it just as though you were speaking for me. I had the same sensation, also. But what about his face, old fellow? What did that seem like to you?”

  “Why, young . . . good-looking, rather, I suppose. But I don’t remember the features very clearly. They seem to be under a cloud in my memory. Only I know that if I were to see that face anywhere, I’d instantly recognize it.”

  David fell silent, musing and nodding to himself.

  “I’ve read something about it. That’s been the trouble with Single Jack’s crooked career. He would have been the greatest criminal in the world from the very first. But you see, wherever he went, he was always recognized instantly. Nobody that ever had a glimpse of him ever forgot him. And even his best friends were a little bit afraid of him. Well, you know that it’s easy to betray things that you’re a bit afraid of.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “And that’s exactly what happened to Single Jack. It seems that he was always fairly square with the people around him, and it seems that they have always been double-crossing him, and, after seeing his face, I can understand why. They were too much afraid of him to be square with him. Isn’t that it?”

  “I suppose so, of course,” granted Andrew.

  “And the man has been going like a shadow through the world, doing impossible things, and playing a single hand because he could never find another living creature in whom he could trust.”

  There was a silence, and then Andrew murmured: “By the way, Dave, the trip to the West . . .”

  “What about it?”

  “You remember our wager of a few moments ago . . . if anyone ever dared to put his hand on the head of the wolf dog.”

  David Apperley struck his hands together with an exclamation. “Confound it,” he said, “I’m caught. Well, Andy, we’ll start whenever you give the word.”

  Chapter Five

  A week later, David Apperley had started with his brother for the West. He was to make a six months’ stay, and, if he did not like the country in that time, he was to come back and continue his old life among his friends in the East. He did not like the idea of making this trip. If he wanted good hunting, as he repeatedly told his brother, he could go to places where there was something better to be had than wolves and antelopes, and only a very occasional bear. This was a sheer waste of time. However, Andrew would never give way, and therefore the trip had to be made, the trunks packed, the tickets bought, and the long journey overland commenced. In the baggage car went the great wolf dog, Comanche, whirling back toward his own home range, and to learn to be able to bay at the moon from the hacienda of Andrew Apperley. But even on the train, Comanche was a trouble.

  At Buffalo, while two of the well-tipped porters were taking the big, muzzled brute for a walk, a man dashed at them, knocked one down, and tore the leash from the hand of the second. But at that very moment, by great luck, a mob of section hands answered the yells of the Negroes. They swept over the would-be dog thief, and he had to abandon Comanche in order to take care of himself. With a revolver that flashed and threatened many times, he slid through the crowd without firing a shot and escaped.

  The Apperleys talked the matter over with a good deal of astonishment, but they finally decided that it must have been some circus agent, for both agreed that Comanche would make a magnificent show attraction if he were once well lodged behind bars.

  They dismissed that matter from their minds, therefore, except that there were extra-large tips for the men in the baggage car and extra guarding of the big dog, day and night. And so the miles spun away behind them, while Andrew Apperley showed his younger brother why it was that he looked upon the West, not as a strange land, but as a region in which he himself already possessed almost imperial rights. He showed his brother the nature of his empire.

  Great changes were passing over the West. For many and many a generation that land had been covered with cattle that were of little importance to the rest of the world. Their hoofs and hides and horns could be used, to be sure. But meat and bones were wasted. Men only killed a steer for the sake of a single steak, and passed on. There was no sinful waste, if only the hide were saved.

  By tens of thousands, the gaunt-ribbed longhorns wandered across the plains and filled the valleys. The summer burned them thin. The winter drifted them before the snow and killed them like flies. But still they increased in numbers.

  Yet all this beef was useless until the engineers and the wealth of the nation had blasted a way across the continent, and the railroad began to tap the vast food resources of the West. That beef was not so good as that of the corn-fed cattle in the East. But it was good enough to fill the poor man’s pot. And beef is beef, even though it may be tough. So those thousands of cattle, wandering across the plains, acquired a sudden value, and Andrew Apperley, out West on a camping and hunting trip, had seen the possibilities that were opening here. He had plenty of money, and a venturesome spirit. He did not know the cattle business, but he could find hired men who did. So he went at the thing in the most whole-souled manner. He came on the heels of days when cows in Texas could be bought for $1 a head. Immediately values changed. He saw steers sold for $35 and $40 a head. The Indians had been fenced away on reservations where they were supposed to remain, and those Indians had to be fed. The railroad was rushing tens of thousands of cattle toward the East. Vacuums began to appear on the crowded ranges. The market was buying a little faster than the source could supply the want, therefore the prices remained good.

  Buying foundation cattle for his herds, here and there, Andrew Apperley soon spotted the country with great droves of his cows. He would buy $20 beef in the south and herd it north where it sold for $45. Every year made him richer as his capital doubled. He grew so great in wealth that he was beginning to lose track of the details and of the total mass. All that he could do was to evolve new combinations, open new markets and flood them with cows, arrange sweeping drives over vast distances, and buy off and fight off the Indians, the petty white thieves, and the organized rustlers.

  For such a great and rapid growth was not unaccompanied by envy, and there were men who would harm him if they could. The markets were open for any man’s cattle. Foolish questions were not asked concerning brands and bills of sale. The East wanted cattle, the railroads were eager to have their strings of cars filled, and the buyers simply raked in the beef by the herd, not lingering too scrupulously over details such as brands.

  In such a time, the temptation was great. One needed only run one’s horse around a neat little group of beeves, and head them through a cut among the hills. A few days later, one’s cows were in the hands of the shippers, and a few solid thousands had sunk into one’s wallet.

  That was not all. On the great range, the squatters dropped down, here and there, and quietly they set to work, at odd moments, with their ropes and running irons. They devised brands which were merely mild alterations of those of the nearest cattle king. From season to season, the home herd of the squatter grew with a strange speed. Finally he was strong enough and rich enough to be honest. His fortune was established. He stepped into the ranks of law and order and began to oil up his gun to get the “confounded rustler”.

  Now such a colossus as Andrew Apperley was sure to attract the attention of all of these thieves. He lost cows and calves by ones and twos every ho
ur of the day, and now and then little rustlers clipped off a dozen, or fifty head. Then there were bolder bands who slashed away cattle from his herds a hundred at a time. Worst of all, there were the well-organized, highly paid, professional, and thoroughgoing bands of rustlers who took five hundred head at a time, and thought that year lost in which they did not manage to make one great drive of two or three thousand head in a single haul.

  David Apperley heard these tales with increasing excitement.

  “But, Andy,” he would cry, “there’s a law in the land! We pay taxes to our government. It must protect us. You’re being bled to the extent of half your profits, almost.”

  “Don’t blame the government, Dave. It does what it can. But it can’t quite keep pace with the growth of our country in square miles of cattle and cattle interests. Law is working its way toward us, but it will be some years before it arrives, and, in the meantime, Alec Shodress grows fat on me.”

  “Who is this Shodress?”

  “The smoothest, cleverest, deepest scoundrel that ever smiled in your face while he sent a man to stab you in the back. He has my section of the country by the throat, and he’s bleeding it white.”

  “I’m growing hot under the collar. Tell me about Shodress.”

  “It’s no use, Dave. I’ve brought you out West to have a good time and to see the country. I don’t want you to pitch in and fight my battles for me. I’ll try to handle them for myself. Besides, the Shodress story is too long.”

  But David insisted, and so the story was forthcoming. Alexander Shodress, of a dim or unknown past, had dropped into the West and suddenly found himself at home in the region of cattle and cattle thieves. But he believed that there was nothing like a life of security, therefore he started to make himself secure. He arranged matters so that he could steal with a perfect security to himself.

  “How can he do that?” asked David, hot with interest.

  “It sounds odd. The point is that Shodress himself remains in the background and sends out his thugs and his crooks to do the active riding themselves. He supplies the money and the rewards. If any of them are caught and jailed, he hires good lawyers to defend them and almost always gets them off. Or, if peaceful means don’t work, he can bribe the jailkeeper to allow an escape, and, in a pinch, he has sent along his entire little army to get one of his adherents out of jail. So he’s surrounded by men who believe in him. He runs the biggest store, the biggest hotel, the biggest saloon in the town of Yeoville. He’s the informal banker of the place. In fact, Shodress is Yeoville. Everyone knows that he is crooked, but no one wants to talk about it. He’s polite, good-natured on the surface, and very much given to acts of charity. There’s not a poor family within a hundred miles that can’t tell you how Shodress has helped them out time and again. They never stop to ask where the money came from, and they are just a bit amused if they guess that the money that comes to them has been dipped out of my pocket by their Alec Shodress. And so they continue to vote for his men for sheriff. He practically appoints the judges. He runs the county, and the county, on the whole, is glad to be run. I own the major portion of the property of the countryside. Shodress makes it a rule to be scrupulously just to everyone except to me, so that he has a thousand men praising him, and only one man to damn him. Well, Dave, in a country like ours, a thousand votes always weigh down one, and while he can do what he likes, there’s no way in which I can lift a hand against him. I couldn’t possibly find a jury that would vote in any way against the desires of big Shodress.”

  David listened to this tale in an impatient agony of indignation.”

  “There has to be a way out!” he exclaimed. “My word, Andy, you forget that I’m a lawyer. I haven’t been a very active one, but maybe this is my chance to hang out my shingle.”

  “Where?” said Andrew, smiling.

  “In Yeoville!” exclaimed David.

  “Hello.”

  “I mean it. By the powers, Andy, I’ve always liked a little spice of danger, and, instead of hunting wild beasts, let me have a fair chance to hunt what trouble I can find in Yeoville.”

  “I’d never consent. They’d kill you in five minutes.”

  “They wouldn’t. I’ll show them one decent man willing to stand up against crooked Shodress. And in the long run, even crooks prefer honest people. I’ll meet Shodress on his own ground. I’ll open a store, and a saloon, and a hotel . . . and I’ll use my lawyer’s training to fight every case against him through the courts. At first I’ll lose everything. But after a while, I’ll begin to get my hands on a little of the estimation of the county . . .”

  Andrew Apperley leaned forward and looked deeply and earnestly into the face of his younger brother. “‘You would be taking your life in your hands,” he said gravely.

  “The game would be worth it.”

  “It will kill you or make you. Are you really willing to take the chance?”

  “Hot to do it.”

  The train was rolling southwest from St. Louis as this conversation progressed, and the black of the night turned the faces of the windows into deep and polished pools of ebony in which the lighted interior of the car was reflected.

  David, shaking out his newspaper, his thoughts far away on the new life that he was even now planning, suddenly exclaimed: “Hello! Here’s what you’ve done, Andy! This fine hero of yours, this Single Jack, is raising the very devil in Boston. Look!”

  The headline spread halfway across the front page. In a Boston bank robbery, three men had been shot down in cold blood, and the deed was attributed to Single Jack Deems. The police were sure that his was the cruel heart and the sure hand that had done that black deed.

  The train slowed, grinding into a small siding beyond the city.

  “He may have done it,” admitted Andrew. “I played long chances that he might be worth saving, and perhaps I was wrong. And if . . . good heavens.” He sat rigidly. “Look,” he whispered.

  “Where?”

  “Beyond that lamp beside the station building. There, now, just pressing past two of those express men . . .”

  “Ah, you mean the slender fellow with the broad-brimmed hat?”

  “Yes. Ever see him before?”

  “I don’t think so. He looks very much like anyone.”

  “Does he? Not at all. Watch his step.”

  “What of it? Like the step of anyone, isn’t it?”

  “Man, man, after you’ve been in this country a while, you’ll learn to use your eyes better. Like a cat’s step, I’d say. But wait . . . what the devil is he doing? He’s going straight toward that pair of porters who are with Comanche. Look, Dave, he’s offering them money.”

  The stranger in question had turned a little, at this moment. Now it was David’s turn to exclaim: “It’s Single Jack!”

  “It’s Single Jack.” Andrew nodded. “He’s trying to bribe those Negroes. He’s got a handful of money, there . . . and look at Comanche.”

  The great wolf dog was going into the maddest ecstasies, flinging himself out furiously, again and again, in an effort to get at Single jack. But those were not ecstasies of fury; even at that distance, they could see that the big brute was vibrating with joy.

  Andrew and his brother were already on the way to stop the criminal, whatever his purpose. But when they reached the place, they found the famous thug gone, and the two porters were going up and down to exercise the dog. The faces of both seemed to Andrew Apperley a little drawn,

  “What’s happened to you, lately?” asked Andrew Apperley.

  “Mister Apperley,” said the bigger of the two Negroes, “I dunno what sort of a lining this here dog has got inside of him, silver or gold, but there was a gen’leman here, just now, that would have given us anything we asked for, if we’d only let him have that lead rope for a half of a minute, so that the dog could get to him . . .”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Andrew. “I’ll see that you get just as much as he offered you. Besides that, I’ll see that you ha
ve a recommendation for honesty to the president of the road. Beyond that, keep your eyes sharp, and never take Comanche out for exercise unless you have a crowd around you to help you.”

  They went back to their seats in the car, Andrew with an anxious face.

  “You see the story?” he asked.

  “I see that the Boston police have lied. Single Jack could never have committed that Boston crime in time to get here to Saint Louis.”

  “That’s one thing. But the most important thing is that Single Jack is following us and trying to get Comanche away from us. And I suppose that it would be a little more comfortable if we had the devil himself at our heels.”

  “Following us, for the sake of a dog?”

  “You saw for yourself.”

  “What on earth could that hunted thug do with a dog?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain, but I tell you that we haven’t seen the last of Mister Deems.”

  Chapter Six

  They turned the question seriously back and forth in their minds. It was Andrew who proposed what seemed nearest to a solution of the mystery.

  “This fellow Deems is a city rat. Never been out of the shadow of the city alleys in his life, but, when he saw Comanche, he lost his head about the big dog. He had never seen anything like Comanche before. He owed his life in the river to that brute. And after he got away from the boat and thought the thing over, he couldn’t root Comanche out of his memory. He simply wanted that dog and had to have it. Like a child rather than a grown man. You know, Dave, that most criminals are children in intelligence. He couldn’t be happy without Comanche, though he probably hasn’t the slightest idea what he’ll do with the dog after he gets it. So he crept out from the shadow of the city, and he’s dogged this train across the continent. The first time he tried to get the dog by force, and he would have succeeded, except that luck was against him. The second time, he tried bribery, but he failed that time, also. What will he do next?”