William MacLeod Raine - Tangled Trails

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TANGLED TRAILS

A Western Detective Story

by

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

Author of
The Big-Town Round-Up, Gunsight Pass, Etc.

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1921, by William Macleod Raine
All Rights Reserved
Third Impression, March, 1922

CONTENTS

I. NO ALTRUIST
II. WILD ROSE TAKES THE DUST
III. FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD
IV. NOT ALWAYS TWO TO MAKE A QUARREL
V. COUSINS MEET
VI. LIGHTS OUT
VII. FOUL PLAY
VIII. BY MEANS OF THE FIRE ESCAPE
IX. THE STORY IN THE "NEWS"
X. KIRBY ASKS A DIRECT QUESTION
XI. THE CORONER'S INQUEST
XII. "THAT'S THE MAN"
XIII. "ALWAYS, PHYLLIS"
XIV. A FRIEND IN NEED
XV. A GLOVE AND THE HAND IN IT
XVI. THE LADY WITH THE VIOLET PERFUME
XVII. IN DRY VALLEY
XVIII. "BURNIN' A HOLE IN MY POCKET"
XIX. A DISCOVERY
XX. THE BRASS BED
XXI. JAMES LOSES HIS TEMPER
XXII. "ARE YOU WITH ME OR AGAINST ME?"
XXIII. COUSINS DISAGREE
XXIV. REVEREND NICODEMUS RANKIN FORGETS AND REMEMBERS
XXV. A CONFERENCE OF THREE
XXVI. CUTTING TRAIL
XXVII. THE DETECTIVE GETS TWO SURPRISES
XXVIII. THE FINGER OF SUSPICION POINTS
XXIX. "COME CLEAN, JACK"
XXX. KIRBY MAKES A CALL
XXXI. THE MASK OF THE RED BANDANNA
XXXII. JACK TAKES OFF HIS COAT
XXXIII. OLSON TELLS A STORY
XXXIV. FROM THE FIRE ESCAPE
XXXV. LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
XXXVI. A RIDE IN A TAXI
XXXVII. ON THE GRILL
XXXVIII. A FULL MORNING
XXXIX. KIRBY INVITES HIMSELF TO A RIDE
XL. THE MILLS OF THE GODS
XLI. ENTER _X_
XLII. THE NEW WORLD

TANGLED TRAILS

CHAPTER I

NO ALTRUIST

Esther McLean brought the afternoon mail in to Cunningham. She put it
on the desk before him and stood waiting, timidly, afraid to voice her
demand for justice, yet too desperately anxious to leave with it
unspoken.

He leaned back in his swivel chair, his cold eyes challenging her.
"Well," he barked harshly.

She was a young, soft creature, very pretty in a kittenish fashion,
both sensuous and helpless. It was an easy guess that unless fortune
stood her friend she was a predestined victim to the world's selfish
love of pleasure, and fortune, with a cynical smile, had stood aside
and let her go her way.

"I . . . I . . ." A wave of color flooded her face. She twisted a rag
of a handkerchief into a hard wadded knot.

"Spit it out," he ordered curtly.

"I've got to do something . . . soon. Won't you--won't you--?" There
was a wail of despair in the unfinished sentence.

James Cunningham was a grim, gray pirate, as malleable as cast iron and
as soft. He was a large, big-boned man, aggressive, dominant, the kind
that takes the world by the throat and shakes success from it. The
contour of his hook-nosed face had something rapacious written on it.

"No. Not till I get good and ready. I've told you I'd look out for
you if you'd keep still. Don't come whining at me. I won't have it."

"But--"

Already he was ripping letters open and glancing over them. Tears
brimmed the brown eyes of the girl. She bit her lower lip, choked back
a sob, and turned hopelessly away. Her misfortune lay at her own door.
She knew that. But-- The woe in her heart was that the man she had
loved was leaving her to face alone a night as bleak as death.

Cunningham had always led a life of intelligent selfishness. He had
usually got what he wanted because he was strong enough to take it. No
scrupulous nicety of means had ever deterred him. Nor ever would. He
played his own hand with a cynical disregard of the rights of others.
It was this that had made him what he was, a man who bulked large in
the sight of the city and state. Long ago he had made up his mind that
altruism was weakness.

He went through his mail with a swift, trained eye. One of the letters
he laid aside and glanced at a second time. It brought a grim, hard
smile to his lips. A paragraph read:

There's no water in your ditch and our crops are burning up. Your
whole irrigation system in Dry Valley is a fake. You knew it, but we
didn't. You've skinned us out of all we had, you damned bloodsucker.
If you ever come up here we'll dry-gulch you, sure.

The letter was signed, "One You Have Robbed." Attached to it was a
clipping from a small-town paper telling of a meeting of farmers to ask
the United States District Attorney for an investigation of the Dry
Valley irrigation project promoted by James Cunningham.

The promoter smiled. He was not afraid of the Government. He had kept
strictly within the law. It was not his fault there was not enough
rainfall in the watershed to irrigate the valley. But the threat to
dry-gulch him was another matter. He had no fancy for being shot in
the back. Some crazy fool of a settler might do just that. He decided
to let an agent attend to his Dry Valley affairs hereafter. He
dictated some letters, closed his desk, and went down the street toward
the City Club. At a florist's he stopped and ordered a box of American
Beauties to be sent to Miss Phyllis Harriman. With these he enclosed
his card, a line of greeting scrawled on it.

A poker game was on at the club and Cunningham sat in. He interrupted
it to dine, holding his seat by leaving a pile of chips at the place.
When he cashed in his winnings and went downstairs it was still early.
As a card-player he was not popular. He was too keen on the main
chance and he nearly always won. In spite of his loud and frequent
laugh, of the effect of bluff geniality, there was no genuine humor in
the man, none of the milk of human kindness.

A lawyer in the reading-room rose at sight of Cunningham. "Want to see
you a minute," he said.

"Let's go into the Red Room."

He led the way to a small room furnished with a desk, writing supplies,
and a telephone. It was for the use of members who wanted to be
private. The lawyer shut the door.

"Afraid I've bad news for you, Cunningham," he said.

The other man's steady eyes did not waver. He waited silently.

"I was at Golden to-day on business connected with a divorce case. By
chance I ran across a record that astonished me. It may be only a
coincidence of names, but--"

"Now you've wrapped up the blackjack so that it won't hurt, suppose you
go ahead and hit me over the head with it," suggested Cunningham dryly.

The lawyer told what he knew. The promoter took it with no evidence of
feeling other than that which showed in narrowed eyes hard as diamonds
and a clenched jaw in which the muscles stood out like ropes.

"Much obliged, Foster," he said, and the lawyer knew he was dismissed.

Cunningham paced the room for a few moments, then rang for a messenger.
He wrote a note and gave it to the boy to be delivered. Then he left
the club.

From Seventeenth Street he walked across to the Paradox Apartments
where he lived. He found a note propped up against a book on the table
of his living-room. It had been written by the Japanese servant he
shared with two other bachelors who lived in the same building.

Mr. Hull he come see you. He sorry you not here. He say maybe perhaps
make honorable call some other time.

It was signed, "S. Horikawa."

Cunningham tossed the note aside. He had no wish to see Hull. The
fellow was becoming a nuisance. If he had any complaint he could go to
the courts with it. That was what they were for.

The doorbell rang. The promoter opened to a big, barrel-bodied man who
pushed past him into the room.

"What you want, Hull?" demanded Cunningham curtly.

The man thrust his bull neck forward. A heavy roll of fat swelled over
the collar. "You know damn well what I want. I want what's comin' to
me. My share of the Dry Valley clean-up. An' I'm gonna have it. See?"

"You've had every cent you'll get. I told you that before."

Tiny red capillaries seamed the beefy face of the fat man. "An' I told
you I was gonna have a divvy. An' I am. You can't throw down Cass
Hull an' get away with it. Not none." The shallow protuberant eyes
glittered threateningly.

"Thought you knew me better," Cunningham retorted contemptuously.
"When I say I won't, I won't. Go to a lawyer if you think you've got a
case. Don't come belly-aching to me."

The face of the fat man was apoplectic. "Like sin I'll go to a lawyer.
You'd like that fine, you double-crossin' sidewinder. I'll come with a
six-gun. That's how I'll come. An' soon. I'll give you two days to
come through. Two days. If you don't--hell sure enough will cough."

Whatever else could be said about Cunningham he was no coward. He met
the raving man eye to eye.

"I don't scare worth a cent, Hull. Get out. _Pronto_. And don't come
back unless you want me to turn you over to the police for a
blackmailing crook."

Cunningham was past fifty-five and his hair was streaked with gray.
But he stood straight as an Indian, six feet in his socks. The sap of
strength still rang strong in him. In the days when he had ridden the
range he had been famous for his stamina and he was even yet a
formidable two-fisted fighter.

But Hull was beyond prudence. "I'll go when I get ready, an' I'll come
back when I get ready," he boasted.

There came a soft thud of a hard fist on fat flesh, the crash of a
heavy bulk against the door. After that things moved fast. Hull's
body reacted to the pain of smashing blows falling swift and sure.
Before he knew what had taken place he was on the landing outside on
his way to the stairs. He hit the treads hard and rolled on down.

A man coming upstairs helped him to his feet.

"What's up?" the man asked.

Hull glared at him, for the moment speechless. His eyes were venomous,
his mouth a thin, cruel slit. He pushed the newcomer aside, opened the
door of the apartment opposite, went in, and slammed it after him.

The man who had assisted him to rise was dark and immaculately dressed.

"I judge Uncle James has been exercising," he murmured before he took
the next flight of stairs.

On the door of apartment 12 was a legend in Old English engraved on a
calling card. It said:

James Cunningham

The visitor pushed the electric bell. Cunningham opened to him.

"Good-evening, Uncle," the younger man said. "Your elevator is not
running, so I walked up. On the way I met a man going down. He seemed
rather in a hurry."

"A cheap blackmailer trying to bold me up. I threw him out."

"Thought he looked put out," answered the younger man, smiling
politely. "I see you still believe in applying direct energy to
difficulties."

"I do. That's why I sent for you." The promoter's cold eyes were
inscrutable. "Come in and shut the door."

The young man sauntered in. He glanced at his uncle curiously from his
sparkling black eyes. What the devil did James, Senior, mean by what
he had said? Was there any particular significance in it?

He stroked his small black mustache. "Glad to oblige you any way I
can, sir."

"Sit down."

The young Beau Brummel hung up his hat and cane, sank into the easiest
chair in the room, and selected a cigarette from a gold-initialed case.

"At your service, sir," he said languidly.

CHAPTER II

WILD ROSE TAKES THE DUST

"Wild Rose on Wild Fire," shouted the announcer through a megaphone
trained on the grand stand.

Kirby Lane, who was leaning against the fence chatting with a friend,
turned round and took notice. Most people did when Wild Rose held the
center of the stage.

Through the gateway of the enclosure came a girl hardly out of her
teens. She was bareheaded, a cowboy hat in her hand. The sun, already
slanting from the west, kissed her crisp, ruddy gold hair and set it
sparkling. Her skin was shell pink, amber clear. She walked as might
a young Greek goddess in the dawn of the world, with the free movement
of one who loves the open sky and the wind-swept plain.

A storm of hand-clapping swept the grand stand. Wild Rose acknowledged
it with a happy little laugh. These dear people loved her. She knew
it. And not only because she was a champion. They made over her
because of her slimness, her beauty, the aura of daintiness that
surrounded her, the little touches of shy youth that still clung to her
manner. Other riders of her sex might be rough, hoydenish, or
masculine. Wild Rose had the charm of her name. Yet the muscles that
rippled beneath her velvet skin were hard as nails. No bronco alive
could unseat her without the fight of its life.

Meanwhile the outlaw horse Wild Fire was claiming its share of
attention. The bronco was a noted bucker. Every year it made the
circuit of the rodeos and only twice had a rider stuck to the saddle
without pulling leather. Now it had been roped and cornered. Half a
dozen wranglers in chaps were trying to get it ready for the saddle.
From the red-hot eyes of the brute a devil of fury glared at the men
trying to thrust a gunny sack over its head. The four legs were wide
apart, the ears cocked, teeth bared. The animal flung itself skyward
and came down on the boot of a puncher savagely. The man gave an
involuntary howl of pain, but he clung to the rope snubbed round the
wicked head.

The gunny sack was pushed and pulled over the eyes. Wild Fire
subsided, trembling, while bridle was adjusted and saddle slipped on.
The girl attended to the cinching herself. If the saddle turned it
might cost her life, and she preferred to take no unnecessary chances.

She was dressed in green satin riding clothes. A beaded bolero jacket
fitted over a white silk blouse. Her boots were of buckskin,
silver-spurred. With her hat on, at a distance, one might have taken
her for a slim, beautiful boy.

Wild Rose swung to the saddle and adjusted her feet in the stirrups.
The gunny sack was whipped from the horse's head. There was a wild
scuffle of escaping wranglers.

For a moment Wild Fire stood quivering. The girl's hat swept through
the air in front of its eyes. The horse woke to galvanized action.
The back humped. It shot into the air with a writhing twist of the
body. All four feet struck the ground together, straight and stiff as
fence posts.

The girl's head jerked forward as though it were on a hinge. The
outlaw went sunfishing, its forefeet almost straight up. She was still
in the saddle when it came to all fours again. A series of jarring
bucks, each ending with the force of a pile-driver as Wild Fire's hoofs
struck earth, varied the programme. The rider came down limp, half in
the saddle, half out, righting herself as the horse settled for the
next leap. But not once did her hands reach for the pommel of the
saddle to steady her.

Pitching and bucking, the animal humped forward to the fence.

"Look out!" a judge yelled.

It was too late. The rider could not deflect her mount. Into the
fence went Wild Fire blindly and furiously. The girl threw up her leg
to keep it from being jammed. Up went the bronco again before Wild
Rose could find the stirrup. She knew she was gone, felt herself
shooting forward. She struck the ground close to the horse's hoofs.
Wild Fire lunged at her. A bolt of pain like a red-hot iron seared
through her.

Through the air a rope whined. It settled over the head of the outlaw
and instantly was jerked tight. Wild Fire, coming down hard for a
second lunge at the green crumpled heap underfoot, was dragged sharply
sideways. Another lariat snaked forward and fell true.

"Here, Cole!" The first roper thrust the taut line into the hands of a
puncher who had run forward. He himself dived for the still girl
beneath the hoofs of the rearing horse. Catching her by the arms, he
dragged her out of danger. She was unconscious.

The cowboy picked her up and carried her to the waiting ambulance. The
closed eyes flickered open. A puzzled little frown rested in them.

"What's up, Kirby?" asked Wild Rose.

"You had a spill."

"Took the dust, did I?" He sensed the disappointment in her voice.

"You rode fine. He jammed you into the fence," explained the young man.

The doctor examined her. The right arm hung limp.

"Broken, I'm afraid," he said.

"Ever see such luck?" the girl complained to Lane.

"Probably they won't let me ride in the wild-horse race now."

"No chance, young lady," the doctor said promptly. "I'm going to take
you right to the hospital."

"I might get back in time," she said hopefully.

"You might, but you won't."

"Oh, well," she sighed. "If you're going to act like that."

The cowboy helped her into the ambulance and found himself a seat.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked with a smile a bit twisted
by pain.

"I reckon I'll go far as the hospital with you."

"I reckon you won't. What do you think I am--a nice little parlor girl
who has to be petted when she gets hurt? You're on to ride inside of
fifteen minutes--and you know it."

"Oh, well! I'm lookin' for an alibi so as not to be beaten. That Cole
Sanborn is sure a straight-up rider."

"So's that Kirby Lane. You needn't think I'm going to let you beat
yourself out of the championship. Not so any one could notice it. Hop
out, sir."

He rose, smiling ruefully. "You certainly are one bossy kid."

"I'd say you need bossing when you start to act so foolish," she
retorted, flushing.

"See you later," he called to her by way of good-bye.

As the ambulance drove away she waved cheerfully at him a gauntleted
hand.

The cowpuncher turned back to the arena. The megaphone man was
announcing that the contest for the world's rough-riding championship
would now be resumed.

CHAPTER III

FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD

The less expert riders had been weeded out in the past two days. Only
the champions of their respective sections were still in the running.
One after another these lean, brown men, chap-clad and bow-legged, came
forward dragging their saddles and clamped themselves to the backs of
hurricane outlaws which pitched, bucked, crashed into fences, and
toppled over backward in their frenzied efforts to dislodge the human
clothes-pins fastened to them.

The bronco busters endured the usual luck of the day. Two were thrown
and picked themselves out of the dust, chagrined and damaged, but still
grinning. One drew a tame horse not to be driven into resistance
either by fanning or scratching. Most of the riders emerged from the
ordeal victorious. Meanwhile the spectators in the big grand stand,
packed close as small apples in a box, watched every rider and snatched
at its thrills just as such crowds have done from the time of Caligula.

Kirby Lane, from his seat on the fence among a group of cowpunchers,
watched each rider no less closely. It chanced that he came last on
the programme for the day. When Cole Sanborn was in the saddle he made
an audible comment.

"I'm lookin' at the next champion of the world," he announced.

"Not onless you've got a lookin'-glass with you, old alkali," a small
berry-brown youth in yellow-wool chaps retorted.

Sanborn was astride a noted outlaw known as Jazz. The horse was a
sorrel, and it knew all the tricks of its kind. It went sunfishing,
tried weaving and fence-rowing, at last toppled over backward after a
frantic leap upward. The rider, long-bodied and lithe, rode like a
centaur. Except for the moment when he stepped out of the saddle as
the outlaw fell on its back, he stuck to his seat as though he were
glued to it.

"He's a right limber young fellow, an' he sure can ride. I'll say
that," admitted one old cattleman.

"They don't grow no better busters," another man spoke up. He was a
neighbor of Sanborn and had his local pride. "From where I come from
we'll put our last nickel on Cole, you betcha. He's top hand with a
rope too."

"Hmp! Kirby here can make him look like thirty cents, top of a bronc
or with a lariat either one," the yellow-chapped vaquero flung out
bluntly.

Lane looked at his champion, a trifle annoyed. "What's the use o'
talkin' foolishness, Kent? I never saw the day I had anything on Cole."

"Beat him at Pendleton, didn't you?"

"Luck. I drew the best horses." To Sanborn, who had finished his job
and was straddling wide-legged toward the group, Kirby threw up a hand
of greeting. "Good work, old-timer. You're sure hellamile on a bronc."

"Kirby Lane on Wild Fire," shouted the announcer.

Lane slid from the fence and reached for his saddle. As he lounged
forward, moving with indolent grace, one might have guessed him a
Southerner. He was lean-loined and broad-shouldered. The long,
flowing muscles rippled under his skin when he moved like those of a
panther. From beneath the band of his pinched-in hat crisp, reddish
hair escaped.

Wild Fire was off the instant his feet found the stirrups. Again the
outlaw went through its bag of tricks and its straight bucking. The
man in the saddle gave to its every motion lightly and easily. He rode
with such grace that he seemed almost a part of the horse. His
reactions appeared to anticipate the impulses of the screaming fiend
which he was astride. When Wild Fire jolted him with humpbacked
jarring bucks his spine took the shock limply to neutralize the effect.
When it leaped heavenward he waved his hat joyously and rode the
stirrups. From first to last he was master of the situation, and the
outlaw, though still fighting savagely, knew the battle was lost.

The bronco had one trump card left, a trick that had unseated many a
stubborn rider. It plunged sideways at the fence of the enclosure and
crashed through it. Kirby's nerves shrieked with pain, and for a
moment everything went black before him. His leg had been jammed hard
against the upper plank. But when the haze cleared he was still in the
saddle.

The outlaw gave up. It trotted tamely back to the grand stand through
the shredded fragments of pine in the splintered fence, and the grand
stand rose to its feet with a shout of applause for the rider.

Kirby slipped from the saddle and limped back to his fellows on the
fence. Already the crowd was pouring out from every exit of the stand.
A thousand cars of fifty different makes were snorting impatiently to
get out of the jam as soon as possible. For Cheyenne was full, full to
overflowing. The town roared with a high tide of jocund life. From
all over Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico hard-bitten,
sunburned youths in high-heeled boots and gaudy attire had gathered for
the Frontier Day celebration. Hundreds of cars had poured up from
Denver. Trains had disgorged thousands of tourists come to see the
festival. Many people would sleep out in automobiles and on the
prairie. The late comers at restaurants and hotels would wait long and
take second best.

A big cattleman beckoned to Lane. "Place in my car, son. Run you back
to town."

One of the judges sat in the tonneau beside the rough rider.

"How's the leg? Hurt much?"

"Not much. I'm noticin' it some," Kirby answered with a smile.

"You'll have to ride to-morrow. It's you and Sanborn for the finals.
We haven't quite made up our minds."

The cattleman was an expert driver. He wound in and out among the
other cars speeding over the prairie, struck the road before the great
majority of the automobiles had reached there, and was in town with the
vanguard.

After dinner the rough rider asked the clerk at her hotel if there was
any mail for Miss Rose McLean. Three letters were handed him. He put
them in his pocket and set out for the hospital.

He found Miss Rose reclining in a hospital chair, in a frame of mind
highly indignant. "That doctor talks as though he's going to keep me
here a week. Well, he's got another guess coming. I'll not stay," she
exploded to her visitor.

"Now, looky here, you better do as the doc says. He knows best.
What's a week in your young life?" Kirby suggested.

"A week's a week, and I don't intend to stay. Why did you limp when
you came in? Get hurt?"

"Not really hurt. Jammed my leg against a fence. I drew Wild Fire."

"Did you win the championship?" the girl asked eagerly.

"No. Finals to-morrow. Sanborn an' me. How's the arm? Bone broken?"

"Yes. Oh, it aches some. Be all right soon."

He drew her letters from his pocket. "Stopped to get your mail at the
hotel. Thought you'd like to see it."

Wild Rose looked the envelopes over and tore one open.

"From my little sister Esther," she explained. "Mind if I read it?
I'm some worried about her. She's been writing kinda funny lately."

As she read, the color ebbed from her face. When she had finished
reading the letter Kirby spoke gently.

"Bad news, pardner?"

She nodded, choking. Her eyes, frank and direct, met those of her
friend without evasion. It was a heritage of her life in the open that
in her relations with men she showed a boylike unconcern of sex.

"Esther's in trouble. She--she--" Rose caught her breath in a stress
of emotion.

"If there's anything I can do--"

The girl flung aside the rug that covered her and rose from the chair.
She began to pace up and down the room. Presently her thoughts
overflowed in words.

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