Blood on the Range. Eli Colter
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were fine fellows, reckless and full of the devil, but we didn’t realize that they were bad. Not till my father warned Bruce and me. He said Louis and Harry had been getting themselves into some pretty wild scrapes, and if we didn’t stay away from them they were going to get us into trouble. He was alarmed, and he succeeded in alarming us. We began to stay away from the Peeles.
“About that time Mrs. Peele died. Less than a month later my father was gored to death by a range steer. We made his death an excuse to stay at home, to keep quiet and avoid further truck with Louis and Harry. The Four from Hell’s Hill were on the verge of a permanent break, and Louis didn’t like it. I realize now that he wanted to use us, to make us his goats. He began prodding us and jeering at us, trying to force us to join them again. We tried to resist, but he had a smooth tongue.
“Louis pretended to see at last that he and Harry had been bad ones, and they promised to change—to act more like grown, honest folks—provided we two would take up our old ways with them again. Well, what would you expect, Doe? We’d been brought up together. We believed Louis.
“We hadn’t more than begun to run around with them again, when Louis and Harry held up a pack train of mules traveling north with a fortune in cash. The pack train belonged to a couple of old prospectors who had made a fair strike, had carted their ore to town and converted it into cash. They were on the way home with their money, all in one-thousand-dollar bills.
“I never knew how Louis and Henry learned about the pack train and the cash it carried. But they did learn—with a gang, they held up the pack train, killed the two old prospectors, and got away with the money.
“They weren’t very expert about it. They were suspected. They tried to drag Bruce and me into it. We weren’t with Peele that night. I couldn’t prove it, but I succeeded in making the sheriff believe in my innocence. The sheriff had come to our ranch after Bruce and me. After talking with me, he took his posse and went away. Bruce was not home. He hadn’t come home the night before, from Tenville. He didn’t come home that day. None of us ever saw Bruce again—alive.”
“You saw him—dead?”
“I did, Doe. He disappeared. We could find no trace of him. Mother was frail; she was laid low by the shock. Harry Peele had disappeared, too. And Louis, who had done the killing. Louis proved that he hadn’t been near the scene of the holdup. Things like that happen sometimes, Doe. The shock that had prostrated my mother killed her within three weeks. Two days after she was buried, a man came to the house at night, a big fat fellow called Porky Ellerton. I had seen him just once before, with Louis Peele, the day before the holdup.
“When I asked what he wanted of me, he said he knew where Bruce was, that if I would go with him, he would take me to Bruce and Harry. I asked just what was back of his coming to me that way, and he said he would tell me later. I went with him.
“It was a two-day ride we took. He led me to the slope behind Hell’s Hill, so far back into the wilderness, so deep into timber and across canyons, that I wondered how he could find his way. But he knew what he was after, and he went straight to it—a pile of leaves and rocks in a thicket. He got off his horse and tore the leaves and rocks away. You can guess what was there.”
“Bruce?” Doe’s tongue was thick. “And—Harry Peele?”
“Right. Both of them had been shot to pieces. They had been dead for nearly four weeks. I took from Bruce’s little finger the ring my father had given him. It is this ring, Doe.” Hardin held up his right hand. On his little finger was a plain gold seal ring, engraved with the initials, B H. “I turned away, and told Ellerton to cover up the bodies. He did it, and followed me back to our horses. Then I learned what he hoped to gain by coming to me.
“He openly admitted that he wanted to rouse me against Louis Peele. ‘Louis did that!’ he said, pointing to the heap where Bruce and Harry lay. ‘He killed them both. I saw him do it. Killed Bruce, and his own brother Harry!’
“I asked what Bruce was doing there. ‘Why, that holdup was pulled right back there,’ he said. ‘Bruce was coming back from Tenville, and he ran into us in the hills. He got curious as to what we were up to and followed us. After the holdup, Harry tried to stop one of the gang from getting away with the cash. Harry got it and started to run with it. Bruce jumped in and tried to take it from Harry. Louis shot them both down. And you—you have to get Louis Peele.’
“ ‘Why don’t you get him yourself?’ I said. He answered that he was afraid to try it. He was a poor shot. I’ve always been a good shot. He knew it. Well, I believed that Porky was telling the truth. But I didn’t know it. That is, I couldn’t prove it. Louis, remember, had proved that he wasn’t near the scene of the holdup at the time it had taken place. I went back to the ranch a very sick boy, Doe. My entire family was gone. I was utterly alone. With the help of the sheriff I sold the ranch and got out of there.
“Before I left, three men of Peele’s gang had been arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to the penitentiary. They were all men I had never seen before—a little rat with mean eyes, George Sidney; a gun-toting fellow named Jean Bluex; and a big ugly bruiser with a curly beard, Halvord Creegan, called ‘Vord.’ I saw them only at a distance, as the sheriff was taking them to jail. The week I left there, Porky Ellerton was found dead at the base of Hell’s Hill. He had tried to get Louis after all, and had failed—but nobody could prove it.”
“And you drifted down this way, and bought this ranch,” Doe added thoughtfully. “And Louis found you out, and followed you. Why?”
Hardin sighed. “I think I know, Doe, boy. I have never stopped trying to get something definite on Louis. He must realize that. Ever since he came here, I have held my hand and waited for him to break loose and give himself away.
“He knows how I loved Bruce. He’s afraid I will find evidence against him some time, and he’s bound to get rid of me, no matter what the price. He will never rest easy so long as I live. But he is too cunning to shoot me down in cold blood. He doesn’t want to hang, nor go to the penitentiary for life as those three of his gang did. He wants to force me to fight, so that he can kill me—in self-defense.”
“Oh!” breathed Doe again. “I’m beginning to see clear.”
“Yes. He’s on the rough edge, Doe. Yet—I know without asking you that there is no proof that he and his men killed Lonny Pope.”
“You’re right.” Gaston lifted miserable eyes to Hardin’s face. “There’s no proof that he carried Mary Silver off, either. But we all reckon he did. He knew well enough that her brother Mel had gone in to Pendleton to ride in the roundup, and that she was therefore there alone. He got the hands of the J Bar B all riding along the Diamond W line, helping Warde’s outfit—trying to catch some rustler that had been raiding the herds of both ranches. He was the rustler. But can we prove it? Hell, no! And while all the men of the Valley were down there, Mary disappeared. I know as well as you do who did it all, but none of us has any more proof than a jack rabbit.”
“What did you do when you found Lon?” demanded Hardin.
“I went straight to the J Bar B taking Lon with me. I didn’t dare accuse any one till I had something to go on. I did say that Louis Peele might have some knowledge of what had happened to Lon. The J Bar B crew don’t love Louis any better than the Diamond W boys do, o’course. We all went flying down to Peele’s ranch. It was plumb deserted, Gage. Not a soul there. Not a thing out of order, not a suspicious sign. That was when I went south after you.
“When I got back—what do you guess? One of Peele’s men came in, as smooth as cream. He said he had come back to take care of the ranch till Louis and the rest of the crew returned; that they had gone to Pendleton to the round-up and he had ridden with them as far as Sky Gulch. Could anything sound more reasonable? And how were we to prove that he wasn’t telling the truth?
“Even Warde and Baker cooled off. They told me I shouldn’t go off half-cocked and get dangerous notions against Louis and his outfit till I had some proof to back me up, even if we didn’t any of us like them too well.