The Ranchman by Charles Alden Seltzer
CHAPTER XXXIV--THE WILL OF THE MOB
Parsons had always been an unemotional man. His own character beingimmune to the little twinging impulses of humanness that grow togenerous and unselfish deeds, he had looked with derision upon allpersons who betrayed concern for their fellow-men. And so Parsons hadlived apart from his fellows; he had watched them from across the gulfof disinterest, where emotion was foreign.
But tonight Parsons was learning what emotion is. Not from others, butfrom himself. Emotions--thousands of them seethed in his brain andheart. He was in an advanced state of hysteria when he rode down theDawes trail with Marion Harlan. For there was the huge, implacable,ruthless, and murderous Carrington, whom he had just passed on thetrail, to menace his very life--and he knew that just as soon asCarrington returned to the big house and found Marion gone and the guarddead, he would ride back to Dawes, seeking vengeance. And Carringtonwould know it was Parsons who had robbed him of the girl; for Carringtonwould inquire, and would discover that he had ridden into town withMarion. And when Parsons and Marion rode into Dawes fear, stark, abject,and naked, was in the man's soul.
Dawes was aflame with light as the two passed down the street; andParsons left the girl to sit on her horse in front of a darkened store,while he rode down the street, peering into other stores, alight andinviting. He hardly knew what he did want. He knew, however, that therewas little time, for at any minute now Carrington might come thunderinginto town on his errand of vengeance; and whatever Parsons did must bedone quickly.
He chose the second store he came to. He thought the place was abilliard-room until he entered and stood just inside the door blinkingat the lights; and then he knew it was a saloon, for he saw the bar, theback-bar behind it, littered with bottles, and many tables scatteredaround. More, there were perhaps a hundred men in the place--some ofthem drinking; and at the sight of them all, realizing the mightiness oftheir number, Parsons raised his hands aloft and screamed frenziedly:
"Men! There's been a crime committed tonight! At the Huggins house!Carrington did it! He abducted my niece! I want you men to help me!Carrington is going to kill me! And I want you to protect my niece!"
For an instant after Parsons' voice died in a breathless gasp, for heblurted his story, the words coming in a stream, with hardly a pausebetween them; there was an odd, strained silence. Then a man far back inthe room guffawed loudly:
"Plumb loco. Too much forty-rod!"
There was a half-hearted gale of laughter at the man's taunt; and thenmany men were around Parsons, ready to laugh and jeer. And while some ofthe men peered at Parsons, cynically inspecting him for signs ofdrunkenness, several others ran to the open door and looked out into thestreet.
"There's somethin' in his yappin', boys," stated a man who returned fromthe door; "there's a gal out here, sure enough, setting on a hoss,waitin'."
There was a concerted rush outside to see the girl, and Parsons wasshoved and jostled until he, too, was forced to go out. And by the timeParsons reached Marion's side she had been questioned by the men. Andwrathful curses arose from the lips of men around her.
"Didn't I know he was that kind of a skunk!" shouted a man near Parsons."I knowed it as soon as he beat Taylor out of the election!"
"I'm for stringin' the scum up!" yelled another man. "This town can gitalong without guys that go around abductin' wimmen!"
There were still other lurid and threatening comments. And many profaneepithets rose, burdened with menace, for Carrington. But the girl,humiliated, weak, and trembling, did not hear all of them. She saw othermen emerging from doorways--all of them running toward her to join thosewho had come out of the saloon. And then she saw a woman coming towardher, the men making a pathway for her--a motherly looking woman who,when she came near the girl, smiled up at her sympathetically andreached up her hands to help the girl out of the saddle.
Marion slipped down, and the woman's arms went around her. And with manygrimly pitying glances from the men in the crowd about her, which partedto permit her to pass, she was led into a private dwelling at a littledistance down the street, into a cozy room where there were signs ofdecency and refinement. The woman placed the girl in a chair, and stoodbeside her, smoothing her hair and talking to her in low, comfortingtones; while outside a clamor rose and a confused mutter of many voicesout of which she began to catch sentences, such as:
"Let's fan it to the big house an' git him!"
"There's too many crooks in this town--let's run 'em out!"
"What in hell did he come here for?"
"Judge Littlefield is just as bad--he cheated Taylor out of theelection!" "That's right," answered another voice. "Taylor's our man!"
"They are all wrought up over this, my dear," said the woman. "For along time there has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction over the waythey cheated Quinton Taylor out of the mayoralty. I don't think it was abit fair. And," she continued, "there are other things. They have foundout that Carrington is behind a scheme to steal the water rights fromthe town--something he did to the board of directors of the irrigationcompany, I believe. And he has had his councilmen pass laws to widensome streets and open new ones. And the well-informed call it a steal,too. Mr. Norton has stirred up a lot of sentiment against Carrington andDanforth, and all the rest of them. Secretly, that is. And there is thatmurder charge against Quinton Taylor," went on the woman. "That ispreposterous! Taylor was the best friend Larry Harlan ever had!"
But the girl turned her head, and her lips quivered, for the mention ofTaylor had brought back to her the poignant sense of loss that she hadfelt when she had learned of the charge against Taylor. She bowed herhead and wept silently, the woman trying again to comfort her, whileoutside the noise and tumult grew in volume--threatening violence.
By the time Marion Harlan had dropped into the chair in the room of thehouse into which the woman had taken her, the crowd that had collectedin the street was packed and jammed against the buildings on each sideof it.
Those who had come late demanded to be told what had happened; and somemen lifted Parsons to the back of his horse, and with their hands on hislegs, bracing him, Parsons repeated the story of what had occurred.More--yielding to the frenzy that had now taken possession of hissenses, he told of Carrington's plotting against the town; of the man'sdetermination to loot and steal everything he could get his hands on. Hetold them of his own culpability; he assured them he had been as guiltyas Carrington and Danforth--who was a mere tool, though as unscrupulousas Carrington. He gave them an account of Carrington's stewardship ofhis own money; and he related the story of Carrington's friendship withthe governor, connecting Carrington's trip to the capital with thestealing of the election from Taylor.
It is the psychology of the mob that it responds in some measure to thefrenzy of the man who agitates it. So it was with the great crowd thatnow swarmed the wide street of Dawes. Partisan feeling--all differencesof opinion that in other times would have barred concerted action--wasswept away by the fervent appeal Parsons made, and by his complete andscathing revelation of the iniquitous scheme to rob the town.
A great sigh arose as Parsons finished and was drawn down, his hat off,his hair ruffled, his eyes gleaming with the strength of the terriblefrenzy he was laboring under. The crowd muttered; voices rose sharply;there was an impatient movement; a concerted stiffening of bodies and along pause, as of preparation.
Aroused, seething with passion, with a vindictive desire for action,swift and ruthless, the crowd waited--waited for a leader. And while thepause and the mutterings continued, the leader came.
It was the big, grim-faced Bothwell, at the head of the Arrow outfit.With his horse in a dead run, the other horses of the outfit crowdinghim close, Bothwell brought his horse to a sliding halt at the edge ofthe crowd.
Bothwell's eyes were ablaze with the light of battle; and he stood inhis stirrups, looming high above the heads of the men around him, andshouted:
"Where's my boss--Squint Taylor?" And before anyone couldansw
It was Parsons who answered him. Parsons, again clambering into thesaddle from which he had spoken, now shrieking shrilly:
"It's Carrington's work! He abducted Marion Harlan, my niece. He's ascoundrel and a thief, and he is trying to ruin this town!"
There was a short silence as Parsons slid again to the ground, and thenthe man growled profanely:
"Let's run the whole bunch out of town! Start somethin', Bothwell!"
Bothwell laughed, a booming bellow of grim mirth that stirred the crowdto movement. "We've been startin' somethin'! This outfit is out for aclean-up! There's been too much sneakin' an' murderin'; an' too manyfake warrants flyin' around, with a bunch like them Keats guys sent outto kill innocent men. Damn their hides! Let's get 'em--all of 'em!"
He flung his horse around and leaped it between the other horses of theArrow outfit, sending it straight to the doors of the city hall. Closingin behind him, the other members of the Arrow outfit followed; andbehind them the crowd, now able to center its passion upon somethingdefinite, rushed forward--a yelling, muttering, turbulent mass of menintent to destroy the things which the common conscience loathes.
It seemed a lashing sea of retribution to Danforth and JudgeLittlefield, who were in the mayor's office, a little group of theirpolitical adherents around them. At the first sign of a disturbance,Danforth had attempted to gather his official forces with the intentionof preserving order. But only these few had responded, and they,white-faced, feeling their utter impotence, were standing in the room,terror-stricken, when Bothwell and the men of the Arrow outfit, with thecrowd yelling behind them, entered the door of the office.
* * * * *
The little, broken-nosed man had done well to leave the vicinity of thebig house before Taylor arrived there. For when Taylor emerged from thefront room, in which the light still burned, his soul was still in thegrip of a lust to slay.
He was breathing fast when he emerged from the house, for what he sawthere had puzzled him--the guard lying on the floor and Marion gone--andhe stood for an instant on the porch, scanning the clearing and thewoods around the house with blazing eyes, his guns in hand.
The silence around the house was deep and solemn now, and over Taylorstole a conviction that Carrington had sent Marion to Dawes in charge ofsome of his men; having divined that he would come for her. But Taylordid not act upon the conviction instantly. He ran to the stable, stormedthrough it--and the other buildings in the cluster around theranchhouse; and finding no trace of men or girl, he at last leaped onSpotted Tail and sent him thundering over the trail toward Dawes.
When he arrived in town a swaying, shouting, shooting mob jammed thestreets. He brought his horse to a halt on the edge of the crowd thatpacked the street in front of the city hall, and demanded to know whatwas wrong.
The man shouted at him:
"Hell's to pay! Carrington abducted Marion Harlan, an' that littleguy--Parsons--rescued her. An' Parsons made a speech, tellin' folks whatCarrington an' Danforth an' all the rest of the sneakin' coyotes havedone, an' we're runnin' the scum out of town!" And then, before Taylorcould ask about the girl, the man raised his voice to a shrill yell:
"It's Squint Taylor, boys! Squint Taylor! Stand back an' let ol' Squinttake a hand in this here deal!"
There was a wild, concerted screech of joy. It rose like the shriekingof a gale; it broke against the buildings that fringed the street; itechoed and reechoed with terrific resonance back and forth over theheads of the men in the crowd. It penetrated into the cozy room of aprivate dwelling, where sat a girl who started at the sound and saterect, her face paling, her eyes, glowing with a light that made themotherly looking woman say to her, softly:
"Ah, then you _do_ believe in him, my dear!"
* * * * *
It was when the noise and the tumult had subsided that Taylor went toher. For he had been told where he might find her by men who smiledsympathetically at his back as he walked down the street toward theprivate dwelling.
She was at the door as soon as he, for she had been watching from one ofthe front windows, and had seen him come toward the house.
And when the motherly looking woman saw them in each other's arms, themoon and the light from within the house revealing them to her, and tothe men in the crowd who watched from the street, she smiled gently.What the two said to each other will never be known, for their wordswere drowned in the cheer that rose from hoarse-voiced men who knew thatwords are sometimes futile and unnecessary.