Chapter III: The Neutrals

It was the evident purpose of the Scarboroughs to gloss over their misdemeanors by an affectation of jovial good-humor, but the victim of the jest sat back with narrowed eyes while he glanced from them to Meshackatee.

"Oh, I see," he said, with a mirthless smile, "this is supposed to be a joke."

"That's the idea," responded Meshackatee, "but it didn't work out. We thought all the time you was a Bassett."

"And if I had been?" inquired Hall, and Isham looked up from where he was untying the ropes.

"We'd a stretched your damned neck," he replied succinctly. "Plain shooting is too good for them rascals."

"And what now?" went on the stranger, "do I get my horse back, with an apology for all this rough treatment; or must I----"

"You do not!" returned Isham. "We don't apologize to nobody. You're lucky to git off alive."

"Very well," answered Hall, and the tone of his voice suggested reprisals to come.

"What d'ye mean?" flared up Isham. "You're pretty danged fresh for a man that's jest saved his neck."

"Perhaps so," he assented. "Am I still your prisoner, or am I free to go?"

"You'll wait until I ask you a few more questions." And Isham beckoned his brother to one side. They talked together with their eyes on their prisoner, and then Isham Scarborough returned. Though he was the leader of the gang, both Red and Meshackatee seemed to regard him with scant respect; yet he was their spokesman, being by nature loud and boastful, while Red was watchful and silent, and he began with some general remarks.

"Now lookee here, my friend," he said, stepping closer and looking his prisoner in the eye, "you don't want to think, jest because you're bad, that anybody around here's afraid of you. The _hombre_ don't live that can make me apologize, and you'd better not make any threats; but if you'll answer a few questions and act like a gentleman we'll let you go into the Basin. Now, who is this feller that you're looking for so hard--and does he belong to the Bassetts or the Scarboroughs?"

"Not to either, that I know of--he may not be in the Basin--but I give you my word that this mission of mine has nothing to do with your quarrel."

"Yes, but what's his name?" persisted Isham shrewdly. "If we knowed who he was we could danged soon find out for you----"

"I cannot give his name," answered the stranger firmly, and Isham reared up his head.

"Aw, let 'im go on," broke in Red John impatiently. "But say, what about that horse?"

"Well, make your own talk," replied Isham sulkily, and Red came over with a grin.

"That's all right, pardner," he said, "sorry to make you any trouble but we've got to keep watch of these trails. Now about that horse, he's got a New Mexico brand on him and that's liable to git you into trouble; but I've got a big bay that everybody knows, and jest to ride him will git you by anywhere. I'll trade you the bay and ten dollars to boot----"

"No, I'm sorry," returned Hall, "but my horse is a pet and I couldn't consider a trade."

"Give you twenty-five dollars!" urged Red John eagerly, but the stranger shook his head.

"No," he said. "And now can I go?"

"You can go," spoke up Isham, "but I'll have to send along a guide to protect you against the Bassetts. Because if they ketch you now, after you've been stopping with us----"

"I can protect myself," answered the stranger shortly, and Red broke into a laugh.

"Why didn't you do it, then?" he taunted, "when we nabbed you by the spring? I reckon you're pretty green in these parts."

"Yes, I'm green," admitted Hall, "but I'm beginning to learn--and I'm willing to take a chance on the Bassetts."

"Oh, you think they ain't so bad, eh?" broke in Isham intolerantly. "Well, let me tell you a few things about the Bassetts. They're a cross between a horsethief and a Digger Injun squaw, and they's more than one man that's dropped suddenly out of sight while he was riding across their range. They're the most treacherous dastards that ever was born and them that knows 'em best trusts 'em least. They're jest naturally bad with a yaller stripe down their belly as broad as the flat of your hand. They'll do everything but _fight_, and you can't crowd 'em to it--not if you call 'em every name you can lay your tongue to. And they're the orneriest-looking rascals that a white man ever seen--like an Injun, but black as niggers. You ain't going to throw in with an outfit like that--and call yourself a Southerner?"

"Whoever said I was going to throw in with them?" demanded Hall with outraged dignity. "Haven't I told you distinctly that I am just going through the country and that I don't give _that_ for your quarrels?"

"Yes, you've told me," retorted Isham, "but perhaps I don't believe you. I wasn't born yesterday, and if you don't want to join them why do you object to going in with Meshackatee?"

"I _don't_ object!" replied the prisoner tartly, "and if that's a condition I agree to it. But since my word of honor means nothing to you gentlemen I must ask permission to withdraw it."

"W'y, sure!" mocked Isham, bowing low and with a smirk. "By grab, boys; we've sure caught a preacher."

"Nope, he ain't no preacher," corrected Meshackatee grimly. "And say, if we're going, let's start."

"Take him over to the Rock House, then," ordered Isham gruffly, "and don't let him git away."

"Very well, sir," answered Meshackatee, and with a half-mocking salute he led his prisoner away.

They were well up the trail before either of them spoke and then Meshackatee broke the silence.

"I'll take your word of honor," he said, "that you won't try to quit me on the trail. They'll hold me responsible, now."

"You have it," replied Hall at length, "but I must say I'm surprised to find a man like you in the company of such unprincipled hounds."

"Oh, they ain't so bad," responded Meshackatee cheerfully, "except when Isham runs off at the head. He makes more enemies by shooting off his mouth than he can hire gunmen at ten dollars a day. That's me, you understand--I'm a hired bravo, as they call us in the _Geronimo Blade_--but when a man buys my services he doesn't buy _me_, and I think what I dad-blamed please."

"Well, what do you think, then, of the Scarboroughs' methods of holding up strangers on the trail? I've seen some rough work but the way they treated me made the blood fairly boil in my veins!"

"It sure makes 'em sore," observed Meshackatee philosophically, "to be roped that way at the spring. And that hangman's knot and all, it's downright insulting--a man never quite gits over it."

"No, he doesn't," assented Hall, and rode on in brooding silence, for he was still in the hands of his enemies.

"And yet," went on Meshackatee, "it ain't what they do so much as the way they do it. You can take a man's gun without jabbing him in the belly and threatening to leave him for the buzzards; and if you'd give 'em a few drinks and kinder jolly 'em along the chances are that most of 'em would join. But that's the Scarboroughs--overbearing as hell, and nobody but a Teehanno will stand for 'em. Jest the minute they see your rigging they was dead set agin ye, because a Texican won't admit that a single-cinch saddle can be rode by a scholar and a gentleman. It's all double-rig with them, and tie to the horn; and any man that comes by with a dallywelta outfit is due to get a hazing. But I'm broadminded myself and I sure throwed the hooks into 'em when I was telling about One-eyed Tex. I was looking for Red to come through that stone door when I made that last crack about Texicans, and I still maintain that you can't hurt a Teehanno by hitting him on the 'haid.' I've heard 'em admit it themselves. And what I was telling you about them being from Uvalde is true as gospel script. They're the prize cow-thieves in the world, bar none."

"Then how can you reconcile the matter with your conscience, if you accept money which has been gotten by stealing cows?"

Meshackatee grinned and scratched his shaggy beard; after a sudden, searching glance at his prisoner.

"Well, in the first place," he said, "my conscience ain't the kind that worries much over trifles; and in the second place this money never come from stealing cows--it's all in brand-new bills."

"New bills!" repeated Hall, and then, after silence, "well, where do they get these bills?"

"Search me," shrugged Meshackatee, still watching him narrowly, "_is that what you come to find out_?"

"Why--why no!" exclaimed Hall. "Why certainly not. What gave you such a curious idea?"

"Ain't you an officer?" challenged Meshackatee. "I won't hold it agin ye--might even be an officer myself! No? Honest? Gimme your word of honor? Well, somehow I can't hardly believe it. I go by hunches, see; and the first time I saw you I says: 'There goes an officer!' But if you ain't, you ain't--and I know it's danged unhealthy for an officer that's caught in these parts--but it's the common report that this money of the Scarboroughs' was taken from a Government paymaster."

"I see!" nodded Hall, and his eyes flashed sudden fire though his face remained fixed like a mask.

"Yes," went on Meshackatee after waiting for him to speak, "and the Government never forgets. Somebody robbed the ambulance and shot two or three soldiers, right up on the Camp Verde road; and you're the kind of man, if I was picking 'em out, that I'd send in to look the matter up."

"Nevertheless," returned Hall, "I must beg you to believe that I have nothing to do with such work. I am a private citizen and the mission I am on will not injure a human being in the world. I admit there was a time when I was drawn into a struggle that left a certain mark on my face; but that time is past, and some day, I trust, the marks will be less apparent. In brief, while I may have the look of a fighter, I come into this country with malice towards no man. I intend to remain strictly neutral."

"H'm; 'neutral,' eh?" sniffed Meshackatee, shifting his ponderous bulk and striking back the hair from one ear, "do you see that little mark on my ear? Well, that broke me of being neutral."

Hall looked, and the lower lobe of the ear had been sliced down and left dangling by a segment--that's what the cowmen call a "jinglebob."

"I got that," went on Meshackatee, "in the Lincoln County War, when Billy the Kid was still working for Chisholm and branding every cow-brute he could rope. He'd ride along the road with a bunch of them tough cowboys, take the oxen out of them Mexican freight-teams and brand 'em while they was still in the yoke. That was Billy the Kid; but me, I was neutral--I wouldn't have no truck with such doings. Well, one night I was camping with another outsider when this outfit rode up--drunk.

"'Who ye fur?'" they says, and I speaks my little piece.

"'I'm neutral,' I says, and they ropes me.

"'A neutral's a maverick on this here range,' they says, and I'm a doggoned Mexican if they didn't jinglebob my ears and burn a big fence-rail on my ribs. Don't believe it, hey? Well, take a look at that and tell me if you're still a neutral!"

He tore open his shirt and exposed a long, red line, burned deep into the tender flesh--then struck back the hair from his ears.

"That's the old Chisholm brand," he nodded grimly, "and they ran it on my pardner, too. He was a revengeful sort of cuss and tapped two of 'em, later; but me, I jest let my hair grow long and moved on to Arizona. But I've switched my system now, and whichever side is on the prod I throw right in with them. It's the only way to do--ain't it the innocent bystander that always gits shot in the neck? There's no principle involved--one's as bad as the other--so what's the use of being a fool? I'm out for the ready money. I'm a hired bravo, drawing my ten dollars a day and doing the heavy thinking for the gang; and if you want to join in with us while you're looking for this party I'll see that you get a job. Don't even have to stay with us if you don't like Isham's ways--go over and join the Bassetts and you'd be worth that much more than you would be sticking around with the gang. But whatever you do, for cripes' sake don't stay neutral. You can see what happened to me!"

He brushed back the hair over his slit and mangled ears and a steely look came into his eyes.

"I'm looking for a certain party myself," he said. "Reckon we all are--would you like to come in?"

"With you--yes," assented Hall, "but never with the Scarboroughs. I have taken a great dislike to Isham and his kind--and the ills which come to a man who stays neutral are nothing to what happens to a partisan. The partisan must fight whether he is right or wrong or be branded a traitor by his clan; and if for one moment he shows kindness to an enemy he is hounded by both sides alike. That is the unforgivable sin--any sign of humanity, any suggestion that the butchery should cease--and as the fighting goes on the worst element takes the lead while men of finer feeling drop out. And to drop out is to be branded a coward. But no man is truly brave until, for a principle, he is willing to be called a coward. And here--since you have shown me the rewards of being neutral, there is mine for being a partisan!"

He stripped back his shirt--from the same left side that Meshackatee had bared to show his brand--and there, between two ribs, was a smooth round hole, where a bullet had passed through his body. It was a mere pit of red against the white skin, and just above the scar his heart beat on rhythmically as if nothing could still its pulse. Meshackatee stared, then leaned over closer and glanced up with a scared look in his eyes.

"How'd you happen to live?" he asked at last, and the stranger pointed solemnly to the sky.

"A miracle!" he said, "if miracles still happen to men as unworthy as I am. I was left for dead--and so I still remain to those who sought my life--but I crawled to a cave and recovered from my wound without medicine or care of any kind. In the mountains my name is added to the list of those who have died in the feud; but God has spared me--or so I think--to bring peace once more to Tug Fork."

"And where's that?" demanded Meshackatee, still staring at him curiously; and the stranger seemed to wake from a trance.

"I shouldn't have said that!" he burst out regretfully, "I shouldn't have mentioned Tug Fork. But as you are a gentleman----" He paused expectantly and Meshackatee held out his hand.

"Enough said!" he exclaimed, and they clasped hands in silence. For between gentlemen what need is there for words?