Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1915 — AN OUTLAW ESCORT [ARTICLE]

AN OUTLAW ESCORT

By KING KELLEY.

(Oopyrtaht.) “Halt!” came the clear, sharp ring of a voice as the lead team swung round a bend In the road. “Hands up!” was the next command as a masked man stepped from behind a tree and advanced toward the wagon. It was not a commonplace remark. Six pairs of hands groped skyward, nor waited to be told a second time. “Throw out the sack with the brass lock. Driver!” Issued firm and cool from under the handkerchief on the robber’s face. “Now get out and line up.” There had been big talk all morning In the two back seats about adventures with fierce wild animals and bad men, but no one lost a moment's time ip getting in line. Nor did they essay to produce any of the guns with which they were so plentifully supplied; the respective merits of which they had each so vociferously argued. June Cleveland was the only female occupant of the stage. As she fastened her eyes on the hostile gun-bar-rel and watched the steady, deliberate movements of the man behind it. there came over her, in place of fear, an admiration she could not define. She was on the last ten of a ninetymile trip by stage from the railroad to Jackson, Wyoming. Besides enduring the jolts and jars of the Incommodious wagon for two days, she had put up with four very uninteresting men and a grinning driver.

At the last stop a rumor was current that the school that had been partially promised her at Jackson had employed another teacher, and was now in progress. So to the woes of a long stage ride and the boasting talk of the elk hunters there was the added anxiety of a position already filled. “You fellows shell out!” came the order; and they shelled. June and the driver offered their pocketbooks, but the robber declined with a shake of his head. One of the mighty hunters was ordered to rifle the mail-sack, which he did with great alacrity, kneeling in the dust in complete humbleness. As the highwayman was stuffing the wads of bills into his pockets, a brown bear shambled out of the woods toward them. The horses snorted, reared, jerked the driver to the ground and dashed madly down the hill. The wagon went over and crashed against a tree a few rods away, and the free horses tore off down the mountainside. The men. on being given permission to retire, hurried away to gather up their hunting outfits and search for the horses. The robber disappeared in the forest and June stood alone in the road. Tears of gratitude and despair blinded her "eyes. She sat down by the mutilated mail-sack and tried to relieve .her irritated mind. Some one touched her on the shoulder. She looked up. The outlaw, now unmasked, stood beside her holding the reins of his saddle-horse. His face was young and firm and kind. “You can ride my horse. We'll take a cut through the woods. I can’t go all the way. but will take you in sight of the town.” June was only too glad to accept. She had been raised on a small ranch in the West, and did not share the common dread of outlaws. He led the way over a dim trail to the east for a ways. Then -they turned north and the long slope toward the valley

At an open parklike flat on the mountainside they came upon a small bunch of horses. The outlaw concluded he wanted to ride. June sat on a bowlder' and watched him rope. She had seen the science of the lariat demonstrated many times, but this was the first man she had ever seen rope a horse by the neck, then throw • half-hitch over its’nose with his own and the other animal on a swift run. This was the height of perfection, in her eyes. He made a hackamore of the rope and slipped it over the horse’s head. Then he helped her to mount and leaped on to the bare back. After a few minutes bucking, they rode off side by side. “This is rather an exciting life you lead, isn’t it*” she asked lightly. “More exciting than profitable,” he smiled. “You seem to have done very well today** “There is no such thing as winning at this game any more. This' is one game in which the winner loses. In thia country, the day for making a stake with a six-shooter has gone never to return. The very best of them — Ed Cassidy, Kid Curry, and many more of them have quit and gone away. If they couldn’t make it win, others had better be careful." “I believe that yon couldn’t win at most anything," she urged hopefully. “No, I couldn’t. The only trade I know anything about has been fenced, out of business. Why, girl, J can't even read and write. AH I know is the rope and branding-iron. I let all the good land get away from me., A quar-ter-section of land always looked as small as a town lot to. me. anyway. Now there isn’t even that .much left." “Many men have succeeded in business who had no education,” Jane en"Not When they had a price on their heads though,” he returned a little bitterly. “Besides, it would be different • / ,

If a fellow had a wife so good that he wanted to make her proud of him" They were now within plaln<sight of the village. The afternoon was about gone. The sun was dropping low over the mountains and the shadow* of the Tetons were stretching off toward the east As they were passing the stage barn at the entrance to the village, a dozen armed men, including the migthy hunters, sallied out and surrounded them. “That’s the man all right!” one of them shouted out “I recognize the chaps!” The outlaw said nothing. One of his hands hung close to his gun, and hl* eyes roved carelessly around a* though picking out the six he wanted to kill. It was a dreadful moment to the girl. A dozen gun-barrels gleamed in as many nervous hands. Death was crouching for the spring. In another moment many soul* would pass from the shadow of the Tetens. She knew that this end was inevitable; that the outlaw would not throw up his hands when ordered. “Walt!” she cried in time to check the pull of the outlaw’s gun. “This man is not the robber. He’s just a cowboy who came along and helped me to the town. You don’t think the highwayman would have deliberately walked into a trap, do you?”

“He’s the man who got my money, all right” one of the hunters persisted. “I can tell him by his clothes." "Search him and see,” another biggame man put in. “Stranger,” drawled a tall, bronzed westerner, who gladly put away his own gun, “it’s customary in these part* to take a woman’s word. We ain’t civilized enough yet to dispute ladies.* The two rode on, leaving the tall man to further instruct the hunters In the old ethics of the West to which he seemingly liked to cling. June imagined that the steady eyes of her companion had much to do with this revival in the Westerner’s mind. He had probably heard guns bark death before, and concluded that he hadn’t lost any outlaws. At the hotel her companion dismounted, pulled the hackamore from his horse's head and coiled it up. June swung out of the saddle and offered her hand. “I’ll never see you again, little girl, except in fancies; for I’m going away to Argentina. Yes, that’s the only safe place an outlaw can bury hisself nowadays. I never cared for the reward that hangs over my head before. I rather gloried in it. You’ve done more to make me white than all the courts in the land could do. I’m going to start all over again in a new place With one object—to deserve a good woman’s respect “Many cowboys have gone there already, and I’ll not be a stranger. It’s a fine place, they say. The grass never dies there and no fence ever breaks the cowboy’s ride. The cattle roam at will, and the herders dream by the laughing waters. And as I ride in that far land where the moon shadows fall toward the south, I’ll see your face in the purple dawn, in the glowing midday, and in the blood-red sunset” She looked from the open window of her room a few minutes later and saw a horseman stop on the crest of a hill a mile or so to the east She waved a handkerchief. A hat waved back in reply. Then horse and rider passed on down into the gloom of the gathering night.