Pleasant Jim E-Book

Max Brand

• Herausgeber: Wildside Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 379

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Gunslinger Charlie Rizdal was wanted dead or alive—eight thousand alive or five thousand dead. Jim Pleasant took him in alive and collected the eight thousand dollar bounty. But then Jim learned that Rizdal’s brother, Long Tom, has put a price on his own head. Now, Jim is fair game for every outlaw around...preferably dead!

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

PLEASANT JIM, by Max Brand

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

PLEASANT JIM,by Max Brand

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2023 by Wildside Press LLC.

Text copyright © 1927, 1928, by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

INTRODUCTION

Frederick Schiller Faust (1892 – 1944) was an American author known primarily for his Western stories, most of which were published under the pseudonym “Max Brand.” He (as Brand) also created the popular fictional character Dr. Kildare for a series of pulp fiction stories. Dr. Kildare character was subsequently featured over several decades in other media, including a series of American theatrical movies by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a radio series, two television series, and comics. The young medical intern became his most famous creation, eclipsing his western work.

Faust’s other pseudonyms include George Owen Baxter, Evan Evans, George Evans, Peter Dawson, David Manning, John Frederick, Peter Morland, George Challis, Peter Ward and Frederick Frost. As George Challis, Faust wrote the “Tizzo the Firebrand” series for Argosy magazine. The Tizzo stories were historical swashbucklers featuring the titular warrior, set in Renaissance Italy.

During early 1944, when Faust, Gruber, and fellow author Steve Fisher were working at Warner Brothers, they often had idle conversations during afternoons, along with Colonel Nee, who was a technical advisor sent from Washington, D.C. One day, charged with whiskey, Faust talked of getting assigned to a company of foot soldiers so he could experience the war and later write a war novel. Colonel Nee said he could fix it for him and some weeks later he did, getting Faust an assignment for Harper’s Magazine as a war correspondent in Italy. While traveling with American soldiers fighting in Italy in 1944, Faust was wounded mortally by shrapnel, ending a brilliant career by one of the pulp field’s greatest writers.

* * * *

A note for the sensitive: some of the language used is typical of the time in which the story is set and may seem racist by modern standards. Please keep in mind the era in which the book was originally written as you read it.

—Karl Wurf

Rockville, MD

CHAPTER I

All that Jim Pleasant had been, all that he had done, amounted to nothing. His life, for our purposes, begins with the moment when he ran down Charlie Rizdal in the mountains behind King’s River. It would have been a pity for either of those expert fighters to have a real advantage over the other, but the God of Battle provided that they should meet fairly and squarely on the elbow turn of a narrow trail with a two-thousand-foot outer edge. If there were any disadvantage, it hung upon Jim Pleasant, for at that moment he was busily studying the sky, not regarding the imaginary rings of the poet’s paradise but more profoundly interested in the polycyclic flight of a buzzard which was throwing its broad loops between the peaks that looked into the valley. The conclusion of Jim Pleasant—or Pleasant Jim, as he was ironically and punningly nicknamed most of the time—was that it would be a vast advantage for a fellow on a man-trail to be able to live like a buzzard on the wing. For his own part, he had not tasted of any food for two days and the ache of his stomach made him frown a little; moreover, a terrible sit-fast was forming on his pony’s back, and so Pleasant Jim rode under the burden of many clouds, at the very moment when he turned the corner of the trail and ran into that delightful gunfighter, Charlie Rizdal.

Accordingly, Jim was slow. He was no quicker, say, than a scared wolf or a startled cat; as a matter of fact, his bullet flew wide and only pierced the shoulder of Rizdal, but since it arrived at its mark just a hundredth part of a second before Rizdal pulled his trigger, the latter incontinently fired into the ground. At the same time the impact thrust him half around in the saddle.

He was a man of parts, however, as a man must be who has a reward of eight thousand dollars hanging over his head, and even when he was thrown off balance and thoroughly staggered by the impact of that forty-five caliber slug, he had the presence of mind to observe that his horse was much bulkier than Jim Pleasant’s and that it was, moreover, on the inside of the trail. Accordingly, as he fell back, he clutched the flanks of his good horse with the spurs, and the frantic gelding leaped straight ahead into Pleasant’s mustang.

The latter shot into open space like a pebble snapped from the fingers; but Pleasant had seen the meaning of that charge just in time, and while the poor little mustang spun head over heels towards the canyon floor two thousand feet below, his master was clinging to the body of Rizdal.

One of Mr. Rizdal’s arms was useless now, of course, but with his other hand he picked from the top of his riding boot a long knife which he wore there much as a Highlander wears his skean dhu. Pleasant, in the meantime, was clinging to Rizdal, while the frightened horse plunged madly along the winding curves of the trail and at every corner the body of Pleasant sailed out like the boy who is snapper in the game of “crack the whip.”

He saw the glitter of Rizdal’s knife, but he was not startled into the commission of an act of folly. Rizdal deserved death, beyond doubt, but dead he was worth only five thousand, while, living, he was worth eight; for some people thought that if the bank robber were captured alive he might be induced to surrender some of his old spoils for the sake of a lighter sentence. Pleasant thought in time, and instead of pulling the trigger a second time, he used the long barrel of the Colt to tap the robber on the head.

Rizdal fell from his horse and so did Pleasant, but the latter fell on top. When Rizdal’s wits returned to him, he found his captor sitting cross-legged beside him on the trail, weighing in his hand a scarcely ponderable bit of stone.

“Well?” said Rizdal, sitting up, and clasping his wounded shoulder. “You came out best, as usual.”

Pleasant decided to overlook the compliment.

“I’ve been wondering if it’s worth while, Charlie,” said he. “It’s a long trip; and there’ll have to be a wait, first, while your shoulder is healing; and after you arrive at Fisher Falls, of course they’ll simply hang you. Whachu think?”

“That’s one thing that might happen,” agreed Rizdal calmly. “What’s the other?”

“The other is neater, a lot,” declared the victor. “Here’s two of us to ride one horse. Well, if you was to step over the edge, here, we wouldn’t have to ride double, you wouldn’t have to hang, and I wouldn’t have all the bother of watching over you and nursing you in camp while your damn shoulder gets sound, and while you figure ways to cut my throat at night.”

“I always heard you was a reasonable man, Pleasant,” answered Rizdal, “and now I see it for myself. Besides, if you fuss around a couple of weeks with me in the mountains, here, the greasers that are working your place for you may run off most of your good stock.”

“They won’t do that,” answered Pleasant Jim, without hesitation. “Three years back, when I was just starting, a couple of the boys decided to crook the game on me while I was away on a trip. I had to chase them almost to the Rio, but since then I ain’t had any trouble.”

“You brought back the stolen horses, eh?”

“All except one. One of those greasers had been a prizefighter and he had a cauliflower ear. Well, I brought back that ear, too, and nailed it into a post on my range. It’s a funny thing how I been able to trust my punchers from that time on.”

Mr. Rizdal nodded, caressing his bleeding shoulder.

“Well, Pleasant,” said he, “you could put a bullet through me and say it was done during the fight. But speakin’ personal, I don’t aim to step off that edge of the trail.”

Mr. Pleasant looked up to the mountain heads, from the southern sides of which the tractile clouds were being drawn out upon the wind.

“As I was sayin’ before,” he remarked absently, “there’s three grand more in you alive than dead. I think I’ll take you in, Charlie. Now, lemme have a look at that shoulder, will you?”

They patched up the shoulder between them, working industriously, chatting of odds and ends. From Rizdal’s pack they got iodine and poured it into the wound, while the wounded man’s face went white; yet he did not falter in his sentence.

When the wound was dressed, they moved half a mile down the trail to a little glacial meadow, and there they camped for the next three weeks while the wound closed and healed with magic speed. It was easy to get food. With little snares they caught birds and squirrels for the pot, and once the rifle of Pleasant dropped a deer on the farther side of the little lake. It was grueling and nervous work, for not a minute of the day did the captor dare to turn his back upon the robber; and at night he put aside his weapons in the fork of a tree and tied himself to the body of Rizdal. If he kept so much as a knife on him, that knife might get into the clever fingers of the captive, and Pleasant would be minus eight thousand dollars, and life as well; but when they had nothing but bare hands to use, Pleasant had no doubt of how a contest would terminate. Apparently, Rizdal had no doubt either; he decided to try another method.

On an evening, a lobo at the edge of the trees raised a long, ululant cry, and the two sat up and listened to the ghostly wailing.

“This is the right sort of a place for that devil,” remarked Pleasant.

“Well, the place don’t matter so much,” decided Rizdal. “Put him in a kennel and teach him to wag his tail, he’d still be a wolf. You’re like that, old-timer. They’ve kenneled you up, they think, but you’re still a wolf, and one morning they’ll wake up and find that you’ve slaughtered a flock of the greyhounds and the lapdogs and the poodles. You’re like the wolf, all the time; it’s work for your teeth that you want.”

“Because I go a-man hunting,” remarked the other. “No, it’s just that I want extra cash to clear my farm ranch. This here job will about shove me into the open, Charlie.”

“If you want the cash,” said Rizdal, “I could show you a quicker way.”

“I’m listening.”

“Look how you’re fixed. You turn me in and get the blood money and I hang. All right. Then you have my brother on your neck, and Long Tom ain’t a joke to play the cards against.”

“We gotta take chances,” philosophized Pleasant.

“Sure. I ain’t trying to scare you. Just reasoning. But you admit that Long Tom is quite a man?”

“He is,” replied Pleasant, with quiet decision.

“Now, what a cinch it would be, Jim, to just meet up with Tom and let him drop a chunk of banknotes into your pocket. Eight thousand you get from some damned Pooh-Bah who’ll make a speech to you and then forget you. Say you take fifteen thousand from Tom—who won’t forget. That’s logic, I say; what do you think?”

“Sure it’s logic,” nodded the other. “The slickest I ever heard. But I don’t like floating funds, old boy. I put my money in the bank, and I play dog till somebody makes me play wolf.”

A skein of birds slipped in a long line above the trees, and the robber paused to watch them disappear down the wind.

“All right,” he said. “Only, if ever you’re trimmed, remember what you missed. Also, I don’t hold no malice, particular. But Long Tom is different. Well, you think it over.”

But if Pleasant thought the matter over, he said no word concerning it, and five weeks later, when the pink was just beginning to mix with the gray of the dawnlight, he rode with his prisoner into Fisher Falls and tapped at the door of the jail.

The jailer opened the heavy, creaking door with an oath and a yawn.

“What damn foolishness is up now?” he asked.

But presently his mind cleared.

“Come right in, Jim,” said he. “This here bank is always open, and we’ll honor your check.”

CHAPTER II

A driving tramontana came down from the white-headed upper range that morning, and Pleasant was glad to step out of the wind and inside the snug doors of the bank. The clerks looked up and smiled at him—they knew why he was there—and Lewis Fisher, the president, came in with the broadest of smiles, also.

“Three years ago, Jim,” said he, in his private office, “there was fifteen thousand against you. Now there’s barely twenty-five hundred. That’s progress, my boy. Only twenty-five hundred between you and freedom!”

Mr. Fisher was not yet sixty, but he was the father of the town, had given it being and name, and he looked upon the place and all the people in it partly with a child’s delight in a toy and partly with a sense of unreality, as though they were rather his dream than a fact. He was a public-spirited man. He had built Fisher’s Theater; he had established Fisher’s Evening Democrat; and he had allowed the town fathers to buy a central tract which was to be turned into a park, one day, though so far nothing had been done to ornament the sandy waste beyond the erection of a lofty stone statue which showed Lewis Fisher mounted upon a fiery steed of rather odd proportions. This was the man who smiled on young Jim Pleasant, who answered: “I’m free enough, Mr. Fisher.”

“Never so long as you owe money,” said the banker. “That’s the penalty of speculation. Money makes strength; also, it makes slavery. Credit is the blood in the veins of the commercial giant; it forms the shackles, also. So clear yourself of debt, my boy. I have an interest in your progress. I want to see you get on. That’s why I give you this advice.”

He patted and smoothed the top of his desk as he spoke. He could not touch that radiant, red-shot mahogany without feeling his strength renewed and his faith in himself reinforced. As he spoke, he did not look young Pleasant in the eye but regarded his own hand traveling softly across the polished wood, and the reflection traveling beside it, lit with a green spark from his emerald ring. Pleasant had nothing to say. He merely folded and tucked into his wallet the release which sliced away so large a part of his mortgage and then stood up.

“I’ll be going along,” said he.

“So soon? So soon?” asked the amiable Mr. Fisher. “Not even wait for a little celebration? Not sit in the sun for even a moment—not even wait for an Evening Democrat reporter to get the true story of the capture?”

Pleasant tossed his head, and quivered like an unbacked colt at sight of a halter. “Newspapers make nothin’ but trouble,” said he; “and I got to get back to the place.”

The president of the bank stood up and shook hands.

“It’s a fine thing to have done what you’ve done,” said he, “for a few men like you make an entire community rest at ease!”

He glanced over his shoulder at the face of the great blue-black safe which filled in the corner of his office. Men said that a great fortune was locked behind its doors continually, in cash and in securities.

“Only,” continued Lewis Fisher, a benevolent smile on his rosy, fatherly face, “don’t forget that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”

A group of admiring townsfolk had gathered around Pleasant Jim’s horse—the one, of course, which he had taken from Rizdal on the trail—but he stepped through the midst of their questions and congratulations and swung into the saddle. An active young man caught the bridle and held the tall horse.

“I’m from the Evening Democrat,” said he, “and I got a couple of questions to ask you, Mr. Pleasant. First, what—”

Never did the Pope of Geneva look more grimly upon a critic than Mr. Pleasant looked upon the reporter.

“Just slack off on that bridle, friend,” said he. “I’m busy.”

And, deftly, he twitched the horse through the group and sent him pelting down the street. By the time the last house of the village jerked away behind him, he had forgotten Fisher Falls and the considerable glory of his last adventure; that was put resolutely to the rear of his mind. There remained in front of him only twenty-five hundred dollars in debt; that paid, his ranch and all that was upon it would be his. In a word, he stood only around the corner from assured success!

Eight miles separated him from his farm, and he made the good gelding turn off that distance at a dizzy speed until he topped the last hill on the verge of his domain. There he drew rein and went on softly, his eyes busy. It was no great tract but all of it was good. Let others have their sweeping acres of desert, pricked with a scattering of bunch grass here and there, burned crisp by summer heat and whipped and beaten by the white winter storms; he preferred this sheltered little valley—it was small, to be sure, but all his from the roots of the stream that ran through it to the widening mouth of the hollow. The self-satisfied skipjacks of the town might sit in their offices and draw down a weekly pay envelope, but he preferred the longer work and the greater gamble with its larger reward. No water famine could destroy his stock and where could better pasturage be found than the short, thick grass which grew here? He did not waste his energies on the maintenance of a clumsy herd of cows, neither did he run a ragged band of mustangs, or keep goats or sheep or swine; instead, his fortune was invested in a glorious bit of saddle stock, tough and hardy with the broncho strain but made taller and swifter by constant crossing upon hot blood. A “flush” cowpuncher knew where to come when he wanted between his knees something that could throw dust in the eyes of nearly every other horse on the range. He journeyed to the valley of Pleasant Jim and picked a mount there. The prices were high, but the quality was unquestionable and a guaranty went with every sale. There were a few instances when the most delightful picture horses had turned out “high-headed fools,” or proved lacking in bottom; Pleasant took back these failures and gave sound stock in exchange, and though this policy cost him somewhat at the moment, it enabled him to push up his prices still farther, for when this solid policy transpired and was talked about, horse-lovers came from still greater distances with wallets stuffed more thickly.

So Pleasant Jim reviewed his past and his present as he jogged his horse up the valley. It might be christened “Pleasant Valley” one of these days. A prickling sense of joy ran up his spine at the thought, for it was, in fact, Pleasant Valley to him.

When he came through the southern gate, a gray two-year-old came dancing to inspect him, then in alarm shot away like a bolt, glancing over the good green turf and disappearing into the shadows of a coppice. There would be a mount for some one—bone and substance enough to please one of those Montana fellows who want a mountain of horseflesh under them! He jogged on beside the creek, taking keen note that the fences were in good repair and all as it should be. Plainly the Mexicans had not been idle in his absence! So he passed the little river pasture where half a dozen brood mares, their foals beside them, lifted their heads and looked at him with recognition in their gentle eyes. A lump formed in the throat of Pleasant Jim, and he breathed rapidly. He had lived with enough bitter hardness to appreciate what is good in life; and looking about him, he was content. Some day he might be able to push his holdings farther up the hills on either side; he could get that land cheap, because he owned the available water beneath it. Some day he might step farther down into the broadness of Fisher’s Valley, too; but in the meantime, this was very good, and he told himself that he was content.

The house itself was tucked between two big trees on a hill near the creek; one room for the kitchen stove and the greasers, one room for himself. In a way, that little place was a fort; the log walls were safe protection, and the four small windows looked out like eyes to every quarter of the valley. So, like a landholder returning to his land, like a herdsman to his herd, like a general to his fort, Pleasant Jim came home.

There was only one stain of unhappiness. Twenty-five hundred dollars remained unpaid, and Banker Fisher had declared that a man in debt is in part a slave.

He quickened his horse, now, for he could see at the hitching rack before his cabin a fine, tall bay, with silverwork on his saddle glinting in the sun. He who owned such a horse as that would be most likely to have an open heart and an open purse to buy another of like quality.

Clattering noises came from the kitchen, and looking through the door, Pleasant saw that the stranger was helping himself to a cup of coffee and frying a few slices of bacon, now smoking in a pan.

“Howdy,” said Pleasant, throwing his reins.

“Howdy,” said the other, without turning around, for at that moment the coffee came to a boil and had to be snaked from the fire with care. He was a big fellow, wide and heavy in the shoulders, gaunt about the waist—the very type of Pleasant himself. Then he turned, and the host instinctively went for his gun, for he found himself looking into the brown face and the keen gray eyes of that undergod of smugglers, robbers, and gun-fighters, the brother of Charlie Rizdal—Long Tom in the flesh!

CHAPTER III

Long Tom showed no alarm whatever, as though realizing that the sanctity of a guest armed him against all danger. He put the coffee pot on the back of the stove and extended his hand.

“Before we shake,” suggested Pleasant, “tell me if you know about Charlie?”

“Sure do I know about him,” nodded the other.

And at that, since his smile of good will persisted, their hands closed together.

“Had your breakfast, Jim?”

“No.”

“Sit down to this. I’ll drop some more bacon in the pan.”

“Sit down and rest yourself, Tom. This is my business.”

He went to the stove, and a little shudder went through him as he turned his back on the long-rider. With such a man, one never could tell. Perhaps all would be well; perhaps not—and if not, a well-placed forty-five caliber bullet would end the dreams of Pleasant Jim!

However, Long Tom was talking of cheerful odds and ends—how well the valley looked; how the water from the limestone mountains put bone on the yearlings; and there was a brown mare whose cut appealed to Long Tom; perhaps she was for sale?

They were opposite one another at the table, at last, taking stock, letting their imaginations have some scope. To Long Tom it seemed that never before had he seen a man so fit; and there was something about the wrists and the fingers of the rancher that promised speed and power in equal proportion. To Pleasant Jim came the feeling that his match sat before him. Whether hand to hand or gun to gun, for deftness or for strength, Long Tom was a formidable man, and would have been judged so even without the past which was attributed to him. His jaws were somewhat underhung and his expression, perhaps on account of that peculiar feature, was a trifle grim in ordinary moments of repose, though at other times his gay manner and a suggestion of libertinage in his air counteracted the impression. In the meantime, Pleasant determined to give away nothing and to watch every motion of his dangerous guest. At the same time, it was not altogether unpleasant to be near this famous brigand who stood out among other men as a gigantic menhir rises over a ruined city.

“I haven’t come about Charlie,” said Long Tom, dropping suddenly to business, “but I’ve come to see the man who was good enough to take him. Ten hands, they generally have to have; you needed only two. Well, Pleasant, I’m going to use you!”

Pleasant Jim smiled a little.

“All right,” said he.

“I want,” said the other, “anywhere from five days to a week of your time. You’ll need two fast horses—your place is full of them—and you’ll have to have your wits about you. What money do you want for a job like that?”

“Go on,” said Pleasant Jim.

“You have a price on your time. If somebody wanted an extra puncher in your off season, what would you work for?”

“I’d never leave my place for less than fifty a week.”

“I want you to ride two days from here and light a fire on a mountain. Up at the top. There are people who don’t want that fire to be lighted. They might try to give you a bad time coming away. Dangerous, but not too dangerous for you, I’d take it. Well, what would you say to that?”

“A little off the line of punching.”

“Yes. A little. What would you name as a price for that?”

“About five hundred dollars,” said the rancher, striking out at a bold figure.

“I’ll make it a thousand,” replied Long Tom instantly.

“Mind you, if there’s anything crooked about it, I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“Why should you care, Pleasant, if you’re well paid?”

“Nobody can pay me high enough for a thug’s job. I’ve got my work cut out for me here and what if I have to lose this for the sake of a thousand or two that looks easy but ain’t?”

“You’re tied to this racket?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a snug little valley,” replied the bandit. “I’d choke without a bigger horizon than this, but every man to his own likings—and now I’ll tell you: All you’d have to do would be to take this matchbox, you see? Filled with these same matches—which you’re not to use on your cigarettes because, as you may notice”—here he opened the little metal box—“the heads of these here ain’t apt to light very well! You take this along, and when you get to the place you’re bound for, you light a fire and hang around for a while. Maybe you’ll see a fire blaze up to answer you on one of the nearest peaks. If you do, just put your fire out, and a few inches under the ashes, you bury this here matchbox. After that you can come home.”

“If there was no answering fire?”

“Then you go back to the top of the mountain three nights running and you light the fire every night. If there’s no answer after that, you come back here to me, and you bring the box and the matches with you. I’d do this job myself,” went on Long Tom, “but I got to get Charlie out.”

“You’ll manage that?” grinned Pleasant Jim.

“It’s nothing at all—except a little time and money,” replied the outlaw. “But look at your own part. All you know is, if you’re caught, that somebody gave you this box of matches and told you what to do with it. Nobody can hang you for that, I suppose?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then what do you say?”

One thousand from twenty-five hundred would leave fifteen hundred. There was nothing niggling or obscure about the thinking of Pleasant. He took out a bone-handled bowie knife and began to carve the edge of the table, already much nicked from similar absent-minded whittlings.

“Them that ask too many questions could be damned, I suppose,” said Pleasant Jim.

“Naturally.”

One thousand from twenty-five hundred would leave fifteen hundred—another stroke or two, or a few good sales of horses, and he could pay off Lewis Fisher and thereafter look the world in the face.

He rammed the knife back into its holster.

“Sometimes,” said Pleasant Jim, “you fellows ring in somebody and try to work him all the time afterwards. Now I’ll tell you. I fall for this job; but it’s the last one. I see no harm in it. I don’t stick up anybody. I don’t touch a match to anybody’s barn or reputation. But tell me who the gents will be that might try to snag me?”

“Four chances out of five, you won’t be bothered. The fifth chance is that a lot of hard-boiled gents with a United States marshal at their head may try to lag you.”

Pleasant Jim whistled softly.

“A marshal?” he echoed.

“Does that come too high? You see, I put the cards on the table.”

Pleasant Jim looked slowly around him—but he failed to see the dingy room, the bunk with the tangle of soiled blankets in it, the heap of broken saddles, bridles, spurs, bits, old clothes, worn-out shoes, and a hundred other odds and ends in the corner; he did not notice the staggering, lopsided little table, the stove which leaned wearily to one side, the window, with thin boards from cracker boxes taking the place of panes in several instances, or the footworn boards of the flooring. Instead, he saw a vision of a strong-walled house of stone, thick, soft rugs under foot, fireplaces yawning for the logs piled in the woodshed, and a breath of sweetness and cleanliness through the entire place. Some day all of this vision would come to pass, assuredly, and in that good time, he would have a wife, no doubt, and children to care for, and a high place in the community, and no man on the face of the earth could look up higher than to Pleasant Jim, in the height of his self-respect. Behind him lay the dark years of labor and struggle, of saving of money and spending of soul and body, of all that lay upon his consciousness as remembered night terrors lie on the spirit of a child.

One thousand dollars for a week’s work lifted him closer to the ideal! And if it were work done for a criminal, could he not close his eyes to that fact? Whatever the crime might be, it was hidden from his eyes, and he could say that his only knowledge was of a box of matches to be buried in the hot ashes of a fire!

He turned back to Long Tom; and he saw that though the face of his companion was calm, yet there was a tenseness about the mouth and a grimness about the eyes, so that it was plain that the outlaw set much upon this decision. Well, perhaps Tom felt that this was the beginning of a long association, but as for the illusions of the bandit, let them take care of themselves; they had no part in the life of Pleasant Jim, and they were no portion of his care.

“I’ll take the job,” said he.

Long Tom paused to swallow a mouthful of hot coffee, and as it went down he looked at the other with eyes pleasantly misted by the strength of the drink.

“All right,” he nodded.

He took out a wallet without hesitation and opened it. Pleasant Jim saw within a giddy prospect of banknotes crowded together as thickly as they could be pressed, a veritable book of wealth. The outlaw took forth a slender sheaf—a mere fraction of the whole! He counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them upon the table under the edge of the plate.

“There you are,” he said.

“No C.O.D. business with you, I see,” murmured Pleasant Jim, highly gratified.

“If you want to play crooked,” said the other, “of course you can. But I trust you, Pleasant. Got anything stronger than coffee, here?”

Jim, without a word, brought from behind the door a small jug of whiskey and poured a liberal dram into a tin cup.

“And you?” asked the other.

“I ain’t sick; and otherwise I don’t take it.”

“You play safe,” remarked Long Tom.

He tossed off his potion and stood up.

“But you’ve done your stepping?” he suggested.

“I’ve done my stepping,” answered Pleasant. “You can’t step and work at the same time, I take it.”

Long Tom walked out. Only at the door he paused and turned again.

“You know Black Mountain?”

“I know it.”

“You might as well start to-day. To-morrow night there may be somebody watching to see a fire, Pleasant. Good luck to you.”

From the saddle he spoke again.

“If you have to shoot at all, I advise you to shoot straight. Second thoughts ain’t worth a damn at a time like that. So long!”

Straight down the valley he galloped his horse with the freedom of one who spent horseflesh as readily as he spent money. The strength of oil-tempered steel was in him; for how readily he had made this gamble and trusted his thousand to one who might keep it and make no return! A touch of envy mingled with Pleasant’s admiration and not for the first time he felt that there was little freedom in his lot. Yonder man lived, but he in his shanty was like a corpse in the lich gate.

CHAPTER IV

He waited only to see the two Mexicans, get their report of the happenings on the farm during his absence, and call for two horses. They brought him what he asked for, a ten-year-old mare, a seasoned traveler and like the wind for a short burst, together with a white-stockinged gelding that went a bit lame in the morning but could gallop the rest of the day. His pack was quickly made, and then with the meridional sun at his back, he went north towards Black Mountain.

He camped that night at the foot of the range, a tired man, but well ahead of his schedule. He was glad of that, for it gave him time to sleep himself out that night, and all of the next day he had before him to let the horses rest and graze while he wandered slowly up the grades, pausing at every prominent place to scan the surrounding country with his glass before he went on.

So he slept that night, seeing the broad, bright face of the Nile star in the heavens as he closed his eyes. In the gray of the morning he was up again. He made a small fire with care, taking only the dryest of twigs so that there might be a flame with no smoke. On that fire he made coffee; hardtack and dried figs were his food; and when he had finished eating he took pains to destroy every vestige of the blackened site of the fire.

The horses had done well. They had grazed on good bunch grass, than which no fodder is more nutritious except grain itself; and they were keen for whatever work lay before them.

There was little labor for them that day. What he wanted was a pair of fresh animals for the possible danger of the night; therefore he went on foot, leading the horses slowly on from ridge to ridge as he approached Black Mountain. There was good reason for its name; it stood like a dusky shadow among the sunlit peaks, bare-headed, gloomy, and seeming alone in spite of much noble company. Pleasant stalked it like an enemy, keeping careful ward on every hand, but in spite of himself he could not mark a sign of man or horse. There were only a few old cattle trails, made during the August heats when enterprising cowmen pushed their stock up into the heights where they would find not much grass, to be sure, but coolness of night, shade by day, and plenty of the best of pure water.

Those old trails he searched with careful eyes but could not read any new sign upon them. For his own part, he avoided going along them, but picked his way instead over the roughest rock-faces where the shod hoofs of his pair would leave no marks, however slight.

Before evening, he had run a loop around the mountain and fairly assured himself that Long Tom’s expectations of danger must be wrong. Then, when the dusk began, he wound slowly up towards the height.

He had measured every inch of the landscape. He knew, to the north and south and east and west, what made the best terrain for swift flight in case of an emergency; his guns were cleaned and loaded; and he was prepared even against the danger he did not expect.

He reached the top and found that he had climbed into the last of the afterglow. All the valleys below him were pooled with thick darkness, but the final glow covered the tall peaks that went up on all sides of him like spear-points raised above a shadowy army. It was a grave sight, which might have suggested strange thoughts to a more philosophical mind; but Pleasant Jim took more notice of his immediate surroundings, picking out a stretch of good grass just below the summit where the horses could graze during the night, and then taking note of a circle of old stones upon the very crest. Perhaps it was the remains of an impromptu fort built here by Indians in ancient times. He was more sure of that when he found the half-buried shard of an olla within the circle.

The discovery pleased him; it gave him a weird sense of companionship upon the bleak height, and he set about cheerfully gathering the materials for a bonfire among the brush which grew on every hand—brush large enough, he noted grimly, to mask the cautious approach of twenty men if they cared to steal up the height.

When he had seen these things, and stacked up his pile to a considerable size, he waited a little longer. Night thickened gradually, stirred up from below, and the keen stars pressed lower in the heavens. It was complete dark, at last, and when that time had come, he lighted the fire and stood back among the brush to watch the conflagration.

He had put on much green foliage; the result was at first a heavy smudge rolling straight upward through the windless sky, but presently the heat grew greater, a yellow point appeared in the center of the brush pile, and finally a strong head of flame leaped up, died and rose again, and then with a roar raised a twenty-foot arm of crimson, high above Black Mountain.

The big man watched this display with much satisfaction and smiled as the brush crackled. So furiously did it burn that little twigs and then skeleton fragments of the bushes soared upward and fell down slowly after the sparks which had accompanied them died in the black air above.

If a signal were waited for, such a column of terror as this could not fail to be seen from any of the neighboring summits. But though Pleasant swept all sides of the mountains near by with a ceaseless vigilance, he discovered not so much as one glimmer of answering light. So he took a quantity of rocks and sand which he had prepared beforehand and flung them on the core of the fire. For he had done enough to show friends that he was there. Why should he make a greater disturbance, which might attract any curious eyes besides those for whom it was intended?

The fire smoked and fumed for some time. He had to stamp over some of the embers and beat out others, but in a very few seconds the light was gone, and the density of darkness seemed now doubly great. Even the stars had nearly disappeared, and only by degrees they began to shine once more for his dazzled eyes.

After that, by turns he watched the mountains and harked and peered down the slopes of the Black Peak; but there was not the slightest token either of signal from beyond the valleys or of any approach towards him.

He was by no means without suspicions, and peering down into the hollows, he felt that danger lay covert there, as a trout lies in the shadows of the pool, waiting for a fly to fleck the surface of the water.

However, there was nothing further for him to do. And since it was foolish to waste sleeping hours, he prepared for bed, making down his blankets on the edge of the small pasture where he had left the horses. He did that for two reasons. One was that there was danger, otherwise, that wild animals might stampede his mounts; the second was that in case some human tried to stalk him the beasts were apt to alarm him in time to allow him to defend himself and them. It had turned bitterly cold, with a rising wind cutting across from the loftier snow summits, so he took a noggin of brandy to warm his blood, then rolled in his blankets and was instantly asleep.

The first sign of light wakened him, as usual, for he was trained in the observance of day and night like any bird of prey. He washed his face and methodically shaved in a little spring head which had been bubbling gently beside him all the night. After that, he scrubbed a pair of extra woolen socks with a bit of yellow laundry soap, washed out a bandanna and a suit of underwear, and so prepared himself for the day with what would have seemed to most frontiersmen a most finicky waste of time and labor.

After this, he made his breakfast fire with all due care and finished off a brief meal, covering the traces of the little fire with all of the precautions which he had used before. That done, it occurred to him that the two horses might not be concealed sufficiently by the shrubbery and the low trees among which he had tied them for the day. With his own strong glasses he could study many small traces and trees upon the faces of the neighboring slopes, and it appeared likely that the horses could be seen by a similar survey.

He conducted them deeper into the woods, therefore, and when he had done that, he went back to the summit, moving as cautiously as if rifles, and not merely field glasses, might be picking him off from one of the near-by heights. There on the top, he continued to scan all of the landscape around him.

All was crystal clear. The wind had fallen away again, as it had done in the early evening. There was not a trace of dust and there was not a breath of mist, not so much as would have stained the face of a mirror. So he could see ten thousand details with his naked eye, but he preferred to study the important points with the glass. It was a lesson in patience to watch him probing every suspicious patch of shadow which might be a cave mouth, and every oddly shaped bowlder. Once his heart leaped into his mouth, for he indubitably saw something stir on the shoulder far down a southern peak. Yet when he fixed the glass upon the spot, he could make out that it was no more than a deer, walking, and then trotting softly out of sight among the stones.

He waited to make sure that the creature had not been moving because danger was coming behind it, but nothing more came in sight for a full quarter of an hour, and he relaxed his vigilance in that direction.