Copper Streak Trail by Eugene Manlove Rhodes

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"This," said Pete, grinning hugely, "is the doings of that Selden kid.
She is certainly one fine small person!"

Pete turned the lamp low and placed it on the floor at his feet, so that
it should not unduly shape him against the window; he pulled gently on
the line. It gave; a guarded whistle came softly from the dark shadow of
the jail. Pete detached the captive balloon, with a blessing, and pulled
in the fishline. Knotted to it was a stout cord, and in the knot was a
small piece of paper, rolled cigarette fashion. Pete untied the knot; he
dropped his coil of fishline out of the window, first securing the
stronger cord by a turn round his hand lest he should inadvertently drop
that as well; he held the paper to the light, and read the message:

Waiting for you, with car, two blocks north. Destroy MS.

Pete pulled up the cord, hand over hand, and was presently rewarded by a
small hacksaw, eminently suited for cutting bars; he drew in the slack
again and this time came to the end of the cord, to which was fastened a
strong rope. He drew this up noiselessly and laid the coils on the floor.
Then he penciled a note, in turn:

Clear out. Will join you later.

He tied this missive on his cord, together with the cigar clipper, and
lowered them from the window. There was a signaling tug at the cord; Pete
dropped it.

Pete dressed himself; he placed a chair under the window; then he
extinguished the lamp, took the saw, and prepared to saw out the bars.
But it was destined to be otherwise. Even as he raised the saw, he
stiffened in his tracks, listening; his blood tingled to his finger tips.
He heard a footstep on the stair, faint, guarded, but unmistakable. It
came on, slowly, stealthily.

Pete thrust saw and rope under his mattress and flung himself upon it,
all dressed as he was, face to the wall, with one careless arm under his
head, just as if he had dropped asleep unawares.

A few seconds later came a little click, startling to tense nerves, at
the cell door; a slender shaft of light lanced the darkness, spreading to
a mellow cone of radiance. It searched and probed; it rested upon the
silent figure on the bed.

"Sh-h-h!" said a sibilant whisper.

Peter muttered, rolled over uneasily, opened his eyes and leaped up,
springing aside from that golden circle of light in well-simulated
alarm.

"Hush-h!" said the whisper. "I'm going to let you out. Be quiet!"

Keys jingled softly in the dark; the lock turned gently and the door
opened. In that brief flash of time Pete Johnson noted that there had
been no hesitation about which key to use. His thought flew to the kindly
undersheriff. His hand swept swiftly over the table; a match crackled.

"Smoke?" said Pete, extending the box with graceful courtesy.

"Fool!" snarled the visitor, and struck out the match.

But Pete had seen. The undersheriff was a man of medium stature; this
large masked person was about the size of the larger of his lately made
acquaintances, the brothers Poole.

"Come on!" whispered the rescuer huskily. "Mitchell sent me. He'll take
you away in his car."

"Wait a minute! We'd just as well take these cigars," answered Pete in
the same slinking tone. "Here; take a handful. How'd you get in?"

"Held the jailer up with a gun. Got him tied and gagged. Shut up, will
you? You can talk when you get safe out of this." He tip-toed away, Pete
following. The quivering searchlight crept along the hall; it picked out
the stairs. Halfway down, Pete touched his guide on the shoulder.

"Wait!" Standing on the higher stair, he whispered in the larger man's
ear: "You got all the keys?"

"Yes."

"Give 'em to me. I'll let all the prisoners go. If there's an alarm,
it'll make our chances for a get-away just so much better."

The Samaritan hesitated.

"Aw, I'd like to, all right! But I guess we'd better not."

He started on; the stair creaked horribly. In the hall below Pete
overtook him and halted him again.

"Aw, come on--be a sport!" he urged. "Just open this one cell, here, and
give that lad the keys. He can do the rest while we beat it. If you was
in there, wouldn't you want to get out?"

This appeal had its effect on the Samaritan. He unlocked the cell door,
after a cautious trying of half a dozen keys. Apparently his scruples
returned again; he stood irresolute in the cell doorway, turning the
searchlight on its yet unawakened occupant.

Peter swooped down from behind. His hands gripped the rescuer's ankles;
he heaved swiftly, at the same time lunging forward with head and
shoulders, with all the force of his small, seasoned body behind the
effort. The Samaritan toppled over, sprawling on his face within the
cell. With a heartfelt shriek the legal occupant leaped from his bunk and
landed on the intruder's shoulder blades. Peter slammed shut the door;
the spring lock clicked.

The searchlight rolled, luminous, along the floor; its glowworm light
showed Poole's unmasked and twisted face. Pete snatched the bunch of keys
and raced up the stairs, bending low to avoid a possible bullet; followed
by disapproving words.

At the stairhead, beyond the range of a bullet's flight, Peter paused.
Pandemonium reigned below. The roused prisoners shouted rage, alarm, or
joy, and whistled shrilly through their fingers, wild with excitement;
and from the violated cell arose a prodigious crash of thudding fists,
the smashing of a splintered chair, the sickening impact of locked bodies
falling against the stone walls or upon the complaining bunk, accompanied
by verbiage, and also by rattling of iron doors, hoots, cheers and
catcalls from the other cells. Authority made no sign.

Peter crouched in the darkness above, smiling happily. From the duration
of the conflict the combatants seemed to be equally matched. But the roar
of battle grew presently feebler; curiosity stilled the audience, at
least in part; it became evident, by language and the sound of tortured
and whistling breath, that Poole was choking his opponent into submission
and offering profuse apologies for his disturbance of privacy. Mingled
with this explanation were derogatory opinions of some one, delivered
with extraordinary bitterness. From the context it would seem that those
remarks were meant to apply to Peter Johnson. Listening intently, Peter
seemed to hear from the first floor a feeble drumming, as of one beating
the floor with bound feet. Then the tumult broke out afresh.

Peter went back to his cell and lit his lamp. Leaving the door wide open,
he coiled the rope neatly and placed it upon his table, laid the hacksaw
beside it, undressed himself, blew out the light; and so lay down to
pleasant dreams.

CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Johnson was rudely wakened from his slumbers by a violent hand upon
his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he smiled up into the scowling face of
Undersheriff Barton.

"Good-morning, sheriff," he said, and sat up, yawning.

The sun was shining brightly. Mr. Johnson reached for his trousers and
yawned again.

The scandalized sheriff was unable to reply. He had been summoned by
passers-by, who, hearing the turbulent clamor for breakfast made by the
neglected prisoners, had hastened to give the alarm. He had found the
jailer tightly bound, almost choked by his gag, suffering so cruelly from
cramps that he could not get up when released, and barely able to utter
the word "Johnson."

Acting on that hint, Barton had rushed up-stairs, ignoring the shouts of
his mutinous prisoners as he went through the second-floor corridor, to
find on the third floor an opened cell, with a bunch of keys hanging in
the door, the rope and saw upon the table, Mr. Johnson's neatly folded
clothing on the chair, and Mr. Johnson peacefully asleep. The sheriff
pointed to the rope and saw, and choked, spluttering inarticulate noises.
Mr. Johnson suspended dressing operations and patted him on the back.

"There, there!" he crooned benevolently. "Take it easy. What's the
trouble? I hate to see you all worked up like this, for you was sure
mighty white to me yesterday. Nicest jail I ever was in. But there was a
thundering racket downstairs last night. I ain't complainin' none--I
wouldn't be that ungrateful, after all you done for me. But I didn't get
a good night's rest. Wish you'd put me in another cell to-night. There
was folks droppin' in here at all hours of the night, pesterin' me.
I didn't sleep good at all."

"Dropping in? What in hell do you mean?" gurgled the sheriff, still
pointing to rope and saw.

"Why, sheriff, what's the matter? Aren't you a little mite petulant this
A.M.? What have I done that you should be so short to me?"

"That's what I want to know. What have you been doing here?"

"I ain't been doing nothin', I tell you--except stayin' here, where I
belong," said Pete virtuously.

His eye followed the sheriff's pointing finger, and rested, without a
qualm, on the evidence. The sheriff laid a trembling hand on the coiled
rope. "How'd you get this in, damn you?"

"That rope? Oh, a fellow shoved it through the bars. Wanted me to saw my
way out and go with him, I reckon. I didn't want to argue with him, so I
just took it and didn't let on I wasn't comin'. Wasn't that right? Why,
I thought you'd be pleased! I couldn't have any way of knowin' that you'd
take it like this."

"Shoved it in through a third-story window?"

Pete's ingenuous face took on an injured look. "I reckon maybe he stood
on his tip-toes," he admitted.

"Who was it?"

"I don't know," said Pete truthfully. "He didn't speak and I didn't see
him. Maybe he didn't want me to break jail; but I thought, seein' the saw
and all, he had some such idea in mind."

"Did he bring the keys, too?"

"Oh, no--that was another man entirely. He came a little later. And he
sure wanted me to quit jail; because he said so. But I wouldn't go,
sheriff. I thought you wouldn't like it. Say, you ought to sit down,
feller. You're going to have apoplexy one of these days, sure as you're a
foot high!"

"You come downstairs with me," said the angry Barton. "I'll get at the
bottom of this or I'll have your heart out of you."

"All right, sheriff. Just you wait till I get dressed." Peter laced
his shoes, put on his hat, and laid tie, coat, and vest negligently
across the hollow of his arm. "I can't do my tie good unless I got a
looking-glass," he explained, and paused to light a cigar. "Have one,
sheriff," he said with hospitable urgency.

"Get out of here!" shouted the enraged officer.

Pete tripped light-footed down the stairs. At the stairfoot the sheriff
paused. In the cell directly opposite were two bruised and tattered
inmates where there should have been but one, and that one undismantled.
The sheriff surveyed the wreckage within. His jaw dropped; his face went
red to the hair; his lip trembled as he pointed to the larger of the two
roommates, who was, beyond doubting, Amos Poole--or some remainder of
him.

"How did that man get here?" demanded the sheriff in a cracked and
horrified voice.

"Him? Oh, I throwed him in there!" said Pete lightly. "That's the man who
brought me the keys and pestered me to go away with him. Say, sheriff,
better watch out! He told me he had a gun, and that he had the jailer
tied and gagged."

"The damned skunk didn't have no gun! All he had was a flashlight, and
I broke that over his head. But he tole me the same story about the
jailer--all except the gun." This testimony was volunteered by Poole's
cellmate.

Peter removed his cigar and looked at the "damned skunk" more closely.

"Why, if it ain't Mr. Poole!" he said.

"Sure, it's Poole. What in hell does he mean, then--swearin' you into
jail and then breakin' you out?"

"Hadn't you better ask him?" said Peter, very reasonably. "You come on
down to the office, sheriff. I want you to get at the bottom of this or
have the heart out of some one." He rolled a dancing eye at Poole with
the word, and Poole shrank before it.

"Breakfast! Bring us our breakfast!" bawled the prisoners. "Breakfast!"

The sheriff dealt leniently with the uproar, realizing that these were
but weakling folk and, under the influence of excitement, hardly
responsible.

"Brooks has been tied up all night, and is all but dead. I'll get you
something as soon as I can," he said, "on condition that you stop that
hullabaloo at once. Johnson, come down to the office."

He telephoned a hurry call to a restaurant, Brooks, the jailer, being
plainly incapable of furnishing breakfast. Then he turned to Pete.

"What is this, Johnson? A plant?"

Pete's nose quivered.

"Sure! It was a plant from the first. The Pooles were hired to set upon
me. This one was sent, masked, to tell me to break out. Then, as I figure
it, I was to be betrayed back again, to get two or three years in the pen
for breaking jail. Nice little scheme!"

"Who did it? For Poole, if you're not lying, was only a tool."

"Sheriff," said Pete, "pass your hand through my hair and feel there, and
look at my face. See any scars? Quite a lot of 'em? And all in front? Men
like me don't have to lie. They pay for what they break. You go back up
there and get after Poole. He'll tell you. Any man that will do what he
did to me, for money, will squeal on his employer. Sure!"

Overhead the hammering and shouting broke out afresh.

"There," said the sheriff regretfully; "now I'll have to make those
fellows go without anything to eat till dinner-time."

"Sheriff," said Pete, "you've been mighty square with me. Now I want you
should do me one more favor. It will be the last one; for I shan't be
with you long. Give those boys their breakfast. I got 'em into this. I'll
pay for it, and take it mighty kindly of you, besides."

"Oh, all right!" growled the sheriff, secretly relieved.

"One thing more, brother: I think your jailer was in this--but that's
your business. Anyhow, Poole knew which key opened my door, and he didn't
know the others. Of course, he may have forced your jailer to tell him
that. But Poole didn't strike me as being up to any bold enterprise
unless it was cut-and-dried."

The sheriff departed, leaving Johnson unguarded in the office. In ten
minutes he was back.

"All right," he nodded. "He confessed--whimpering hard. Brooks was in it.
I've got him locked up. Nice doings, this is!"

"Mitchell?"

"Yes. I wouldn't have thought it of him. What was the reason?"

"There is never but one reason. Money.--Who's this?"

It was Mr. Boland, attended by Mr. Ferdie Sedgwick, both sadly disheveled
and bearing marks of a sleepless night. Francis Charles spoke hurriedly
to the sheriff.

"Oh, I say, Barton! McClintock will go bail for this man Johnson. Ferdie
and I would, but we're not taxpayers in the county. Come over to the
Iroquois, won't you?"

"Boland," said the sheriff solemnly, "take this scoundrel out of my jail!
Don't you ever let him step foot in here again. There won't be any bail;
but he must appear before His Honor later to-day for the formal dismissal
of the case. Take him away! If you can possibly do so, ship him out of
town at once."

Francis Charles winked at Peter as they went down the steps.

"So it was you last night?" said Peter. "Thanks to you. I'll do as much
for you sometime."

"Thank us both. This is my friend Sedgwick, who was to have been our
chauffeur." The two gentlemen bowed, grinning joyfully. "My name's
Boland, and I'm to be your first stockholder. Miss Selden told me about
you--which is my certificate of character. Come over to the hotel and see
Old McClintock. Miss Selden is there too. She bawled him out about Nephew
Stan last night. Regular old-fashioned wigging! And now she has the old
gentleman eating from her hand. Say, how about this Stanley thing,
anyway? Any good?"

"Son," said Pete, "Stanley is a regular person."

Boland's face clouded.

"Well, I'm going out with you and have a good look at him," he said
gloomily. "If I'm not satisfied with him, I'll refuse my consent. And
I'll look at your mine--if you've got any mine. They used to say that
when a man drinks of the waters of the Hassayampa, he can never tell the
truth again. And you're from Arizona."

Pete stole a shrewd look at the young man's face.

"There is another old saying about the Hassayampa, son," he said kindly,
"with even more truth to it than in that old _dicho_. They say that
whoever drinks of the waters of the Hassayampa must come to drink again."

He bent his brows at Francis Charles.

"Good guess," admitted Boland, answering the look. "I've never been to
Arizona, but I've sampled the Pecos and the Rio Grande; and I must go
back 'Where the flyin'-fishes play on the road to Mandalay, where the
dawn comes up like thunder'--Oh, gee! That's my real reason. I suppose
that silly girl and your picturesque pardner will marry, anyhow, even if
I disapprove--precious pair they'll make! And if I take a squint at the
copper proposition, it will be mostly in Ferdie's interest--Ferdie is the
capitalist, comparatively speaking; but he can't tear himself away from
little old N'Yawk. This is his first trip West--here in Vesper. Myself,
I've got only two coppers to clink together--or maybe three. We're rather
overlooking Ferdie, don't you think? Mustn't do that. Might withdraw his
backin'. Ferdie, speak up pretty for the gennulmun!"

"Oh, don't mind me, Mr. Johnson," said Sedgwick cheerfully. "I'm used to
hearin' Boland hog the conversation, and trottin' to keep up with him.
Glad to be seen on the street with him. Gives one a standing, you know.
But, I say, old chappie, why didn't you come last night? Deuced anxious,
we were! Thought you missed the way, or slid down your rope and got
nabbed again, maybe. No end of a funk I was in, not being used to
lawbreakin', except by advice of counsel. And we felt a certain delicacy
about inquiring about you this morning, you know--until we heard about
the big ructions at the jail. Come over to McClintock's rooms--can't
you?--where we'll be all together, and tell us about it--so you won't
have to tell it but the one time."

"No, sir," said Pete decidedly. "I get my breakfast first, and a large
shave. Got to do credit to Stan. Then I'll go with you. Big mistake,
though. Story like this gets better after bein' told a few times. I could
make quite a tale of this, with a little practice."

CHAPTER XV

"You've got Stan sized up all wrong, Mr. McClintock," said Pete. "That
boy didn't want your money. He never so much as mentioned your name to
me. If he had, I would have known why Old Man Trouble was haunting him so
persistent. And he don't want anybody's money. He's got a-plenty of his
own--in prospect. And he's got what's better than money: he has learned
to do without what he hasn't got."

"You say he has proved himself a good man of his hands?" demanded
McClintock sharply.

"Yessir--Stanley is sure one double-fisted citizen," said Pete. "Here is
what I heard spoken of him by highest authority the day before I left:
'He'll make a hand!' That was the word said of Stan to me. We don't get
any higher than that in Arizona. When you say of a man, 'He'll do to take
along,' you've said it all. And Stanley Mitchell will do to take along.
I'm thinkin', sir, that you did him no such an ill turn when your quarrel
sent him out there. He was maybe the least bit inclined to be
butter-flighty when he first landed."

It was a queer gathering. McClintock sat in his great wheeled chair,
leaning against the cushions; he held a silken skull-cap in his hand,
revealing a shining poll with a few silvered locks at side and back; his
little red ferret eyes, fiery still, for all the burden of his years,
looked piercingly out under shaggy brows. His attendant, withered and
brown and gaunt, stood silent behind him. Mary Selden, quiet and pale,
was at the old man's left hand. Pete Johnson, with one puffed and
discolored eye, a bruised cheek, and with skinned and bandaged knuckles,
but cheerful and sunny of demeanor, sat facing McClintock. Boland and
Sedgwick sat a little to one side. They had tried to withdraw, on the
plea of intrusion; but McClintock had overruled them and bade them stay.

"For the few high words that passed atween us, I care not a
boddle--though, for the cause of them I take shame to myself," said
McClintock, glancing down affectionately at Mary Selden. "I was the more
misled--at the contrivance of yon fleechin' scoundrel of an Oscar. 'I'm
off to Arizona, to win the boy free,' says he--the leein' cur!... I will
say this thing, too, that my heart warmed to the lad at the very time of
it--that he had spunk to speak his mind. I have seen too much of the
supple stock. Sirs, it is but an ill thing to be over-rich, in which
estate mankind is seen at the worst. The fawning sort cringe underfoot
for favors, and the true breed of kindly folk are all o'erapt to pass the
rich man by, verra scornful-like." He looked hard at Peter Johnson. "I am
naming no names," he added.

"As for my gear, it would be a queer thing if I could not do what I like
with my own. Even a gay young birkie like yoursel' should understand
that, Mr. Johnson. Besides, we talk of what is by. The lawyer has been;
Van Lear has given him instructions, and the pack of you shall witness my
hand to the bit paper that does Stan right, or ever you leave this room."

Pete shrugged his shoulders. "Stanley will always be feelin' that I
softied it up to you. And he's a stiff-necked one--Stan!"

McClintock laughed with a relish.

"For all ye are sic a fine young man, Mr. Johnson, I'm doubtin' ye're no
deeplomat. And Stan will be knowin' that same. Here is what ye shall do:
you shall go to him and say that you saw an old man sitting by his
leelane, handfast to the chimney neuk; and that you are thinking I will
be needin' a friendly face, and that you think ill of him for that same
stiff neck of his. Ye will be having him come to seek and not to gie;
folk aye like better to be forgiven than to forgive; I do, mysel'. That
is what you shall do for me."

"And I did not come to coax money from you to develop the mine with,
either," said Pete. "If the play hadn't come just this way, with the jail
and all, you would have seen neither hide nor hair of me."

"I am thinkin' that you are one who has had his own way of it overmuch,"
said McClintock. His little red eyes shot sparks beneath the beetling
brows; he had long since discovered that he had the power to badger Mr.
Johnson; and divined that, as a usual thing, Johnson was a man not easily
ruffled. The old man enjoyed the situation mightily and made the most of
it. "When ye are come to your growth, you will be more patient of sma'
crossings. Here is no case for argle-bargle. You have taken yon twa brisk
lads into composition with you"--he nodded toward the brisk lads--"the
compact being that they were to provide fodder for yonder mine-beastie,
so far as in them lies, and, when they should grow short of siller, to
seek more for you. Weel, they need seek no farther, then. I have told
them that I will be their backer at need; I made the deal wi' them direct
and ye have nowt to do with it. You are ill to please, young man! You
come here with a very singular story, and nowt to back it but a glib
tongue and your smooth, innocent-like young face--and you go back hame
with a heaped gowpen of gold, and mair in the kist ahint of that. I
think ye do very weel for yoursel'."

"Don't mind him, Mr. Johnson," said Mary Selden. "He is only teasing
you."

Old McClintock covered her hand with his own and continued: "Listen to
her now! Was ne'er a lassie yet could bear to think ill of a bonny face!"
He drew down his brows at Pete, who writhed visibly.

Ferdie Sedgwick rose and presented a slip of pasteboard to McClintock,
with a bow.

"I have to-day heard with astonishment--ahem!--and with indignation, a
great many unseemly and disrespectful remarks concerning money, and more
particularly concerning money that runs to millions," he said, opposing
a grave and wooden countenance to the battery of eyes. "Allow me to
present you my card, Mr. McClintock, and to assure you that I harbor no
such sentiments. I can always be reached at the address given; and I beg
you to remember, sir, that I shall be most happy to serve you in the
event that--"

A rising gale of laughter drowned his further remarks, but he continued
in dumb show, with fervid gesticulations, and a mouth that moved rapidly
but produced no sound, concluding with a humble bow; and stalked back to
his chair with stately dignity, unmarred by even the semblance of a
smile. Young Peter Johnson howled with the rest, his sulks forgotten;
and even the withered serving-man relaxed to a smile--a portent hitherto
unknown.

"Come; we grow giddy," chided McClintock at last, wiping his own eyes as
he spoke. "We have done with talk of yonder ghost-bogle mine. But I must
trouble you yet with a word of my own, which is partly to justify me
before you. This it is--that, even at the time of Stanley's flitting, I
set it down in black and white that he was to halve my gear wi' Oscar,
share and share alike. I aye likit the boy weel. From this day all is
changit; Oscar shall hae neither plack nor bawbee of mine; all goes to my
wife's nephew, Stanley Mitchell, as is set down in due form in the bit
testament that is waiting without; bating only some few sma' bequests for
old kindness. It is but loath I am to poison our mirth with the name of
the man Oscar; the deil will hae him to be brandered; he is fast grippit,
except he be cast out as an orra-piece, like the smith in the Norroway
tale. When ye are come to your own land, Mr. Johnson, ye will find that
brockle-faced stot there afore you; and I trust ye will comb him weel.
Heckle him finely, and spare not; but ere ye have done wi' him, for my
sake drop a word in his lug to come nae mair to Vesper. When all's said,
the man is of my wife's blood and bears her name; I would not have that
name publicly disgracit. They were a kindly folk, the Mitchells. I
thought puirly of theem for a wastrel crew when I was young. But now I am
old, I doubt their way was as near right as mine. You will tell him for
me, Mr. Johnson, to name one who shall put a value on his gear, and I
shall name another; and what they agree upon I shall pay over to his
doer, and then may I never hear of him more--unless it be of ony glisk of
good yet in him, the which I shall be most blithe to hear. And so let
that be my last word of Oscar. Cornelius, bring in the lawyer body, and
let us be ower wi' it; for I think it verra needfu' that the two lads
should even pack their mails and take train this day for the West. You'll
have an eye on this young spark, Mr. Boland? And gie him a bit word of
counsel from time to time, should ye see him temptit to whilly-whas and
follies? I fear me he is prone to insubordination."

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