LITMIR.BIZ

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"Lived with that man as a common-law wife in another town—"

      "That's a lie!"

      "So? Try to make Bannock City believe it's a lie. You can't prove you didn't. Anyhow, you went away with him. Disappeared. Where's he now? Where did you live the next three-four years? Back East, uh? Who furnished you the money? And you been traveling around mighty free ever since. Even your best friends here don't know your history. If it's a lie, why didn't you tell them? That man never went back to Bannock City to tell folks it was a lie. And I can produce a party that saw you and the fellow living in a hotel at Red Buttes a week after you skipped. A lie, uh? Why—" and Hunnewell had worked himself into such a state of mind that he almost pushed her against the wall. "You drop this and get out of town. If you don't I'll ruin you. Good and plenty. Not a word, you understand?"

      He moved away and gave her a chance to open the door. She almost fell on the stairs. Out in the street she stopped to catch hold of herself. The past had marched across the years to face her again with its grimy shadow; to leer and whisper all of that old and horrible story in her ears, to wreck the later life she had so laboriously and courageously built up. Somebody—-a friend—spoke to her in passing, but she was so blinded by the struggle inside her that she never heard. She was whispering: "Oh, Jim—Jim! I'll never see you again. And you'll find it out some day—you'll hear that tale. I wish you had asked me questions. I wish you had!"

      Throughout her life she had been a clear-minded girl, a rigorously self-disciplined girl. So when she came to the town's daily paper she controlled her mind and heart once more. Going in she asked the question uppermost in her head. With the information she returned to the capitol building and was admitted to the governor's office. He saw the drawn expression of her face and became immediately concerned.

      "I told you to wrap well. It's cold outside. Here, sit down. Sereno—go rustle up some good hot coffee for us."

      She got T. Q. Bangor's letter from her purse and handed it to the governor. He read through it.

      "I knew that. What else?"

      "Woolfridge sent out his advertisement for settlers two days after he knew the dam wasn't going to be built. That can be proven by the newspapers who received copies of the ad."

      The governor's eyes turned chilly. His jaw seemed to shoot outward. "Used the mails to propagate that bunco game I see. I read the ads myself. Didn't actually promise anything definite about the dam. Suggested—inferred—skipped around the edge of the crater." He rose and put a big paw on her shoulder. "You're a better man than the usual last run of shad I've got cluttering my doorstep. I'll talk to the attorney-general about this. Provable fraud—I think." He turned around the room, stopped to study a painting of his predecessor, muttered under his breath. And turned back again to her. "I'm not going to hit him yet. Not through the regular machinery. Never like to hang a man if he'll hang himself. Don't want the opposition to say I'm persecuting an enemy. Don't want to give them any ammunition right now. There is a better way. My dear girl, I must send you off to wind up this business. Willing?"

      "Governor, I almost cry when I think of those wagons coming into Roaring Horse with all the women and kiddies—"

      "We'll stop him. We'll let his own machinery devour him. Listen carefully. You take this letter and go back to Roaring Horse. Have the weekly paper up there print it. You won't have any trouble about that. Sam Philips owns the sheet and he's too honest to be bought. Sam knows me well and he'll take care of the story. That's the end of the Woolfridge business right there. The county will be full of it in twenty-four hours. And the news will carry on out to the rest of the territory and stop all would-be homesteaders."

      Gay left. The governor roamed the vast office again and came to a stand. He was an old campaigner, a scarred veteran, and he knew humble folk inside out—their impulses, their honesty, their angers. And so, perhaps, he knew what he had done; perhaps he understood the upheaval that would follow publication of the story. Perhaps he had some dim foreknowledge of tragedy to come. At heart the governor was kindly and without malice. He played the political game according to accepted rules. Yet once his deep sense of justice was touched he was apt to revert to the laws of the Old Testament. In his earlier days he had seen men hung by vigilante rule, and there was still in him a full approval of that type of elemental justice. So he stared at the picture of his predecessor, eyes narrowing into the future and his cheeks touched by a winter bleakness. Even so, it was not given him to foresee the swift flood of passion about to flow over Roaring Horse, nor to realize how many different characters were to be caught up in the smashing, overwhelming current—to be battered, sucked under, spewed aside.

      Gay Thatcher arrived in Roaring Horse a day and a half later. She placed the story in the hands of the veteran newspaperman, Sam Philips, and considered her mission ended. The paper came out on a Saturday; two days removed. Not knowing what to do, and impelled by a queer restlessness, she took up her old room at the Gusher and waited.

      XVII. JIM CHAFFEE RIDES BACK

       Table of Contents

      Jim Chaffee left Bannock City by stage early on a wind-bitten morning, caught a train across the range, and dropped off sometime after noon at the yellow station house that served the Roaring Horse country. The Roaring Horse stage was waiting; Chaffee crossed the tracks, sharply watching the driver. Sooner or later the news of his return would be abroad; he couldn't help this turn of events, but he did hope that the tidings might be delayed until he was well into the desert. But as soon as he recognized the driver he knew that little time would be lost in transmitting the fact that he had set foot upon debatable soil again—and was again fair game. That driver happened to be Jeff Ganashayd, one of those fellows who was willing to be all things to all men. There was no malice in Ganashayd; only, he had a tongue never still. And Jim Chaffee's presence, an item of importance to everybody in the county, would certainly put that tongue in motion.

      Chaffee saluted the man cheerfully and climbed to the top seat. "Only passenger, Jeff. Let's go."

      "Sa-ay," drawled Ganashayd, eyes growing wider, "ain't yuh kinder unexpected?" He dropped into his seat and set the team on the homeward trial. "Gosh, Jim, yuh mean to go right into town?"

      Chaffee brushed that aside, having questions of his own. "What's news, Jeff?"

      "Nothin' much an' a little bit of everythin'," opined the stage driver. "Course, I ain't a man to do much talkin'. Minds my own business and says little. The country is full of homesteaders. Yeah. Never saw the beat. Swarmin' in like flies. Mostly folks from the adjoinin' counties. Mack Moran was plugged but is doin' well. Miz Satterlee left the district. Injun Eagle went back to the blanket an' sure give folks a chill. But, sa-ay, the biggest item was a story printed in the paper, tellin' how they wasn't goin' to be no dam and Mr. Woolfridge knew they wasn't all the time. New settlers seems sorter riled about that. Some talk of bringin' somebody to book about, it. But, pshaw, a man'll hear lots uh things foolish. That Thatcher woman drifted back. Heard a story about her—"

      "Back up," said Chaffee with a flat emphasis on the words. "Turn off on this side road, Jeff. I'm goin' up to Cherry's horse ranch."

      "I got to make time," objected Ganashayd.

      "Only a couple of miles out of your way," was Chaffee's calm reply. "What's two miles to an empty stage with an empty driver on it? It'll give you that much more time to cook up a good stiff yarn about me. Anyhow, I ain't walkin'."

      "I know when to mind my own business," stated Ganashayd earnestly. "Won't say a word to nobody."

      "Bear off," insisted Chaffee. So the stage took the side road and closed upon a clutter of ranch houses topped by a windmill tower. Presently they were at the end of the road with a pack of dogs sounding at them. Chaffee swung to the ground. "Pay you next time, Jeff. Tell everybody you saw me. Tell em I'm poor in the flanks and I limp on one leg. Tell 'em I look humble and act humble and feel humble—but that I'm here and I'll see everybody soon. So long, Jeff."

      Jeff Ganashayd went back the side road much faster than he went up. He took the curves

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