Pulp - Adventure.19.07.01.Colonel Sutherland Intervenes - Gordon Young (pdf) Read online

  Adventure, 1st July, 1919

  THE auction tent was filled with miners. In when caught with the goods? But, as he was San Francisco in ’49 auctions were popular.

  being dragged out, he turned toward Ward and There is almost the fascination of gambling in did manage to shout:

  bidding under the hammer. Besides, the wants

  “Yesterday—Mr. Freeman—I paid for

  of the miners were many, and everything from

  ’em. You put ’em aside—I was to call!”

  potatoes to mirrors was put up for sale.

  Gusts of sardonic laughter greeted

  A man, smooth-shaven, obviously a

  such an ingenious defense. Besides, it was newcomer, entered. He paused for a time to evident the man did not even know Ward’s watch the bidding; then, pushing his way up to name. Ward laughed more sardonically than the counter, he reached across and took a any.

  parcel wrapped in newspaper and started out.

  Whippings were not uncommon, and

  A dozen men had seen him and thought even branding was known in those days. A nothing of it. The action was as if he were man could commit murder and go scatheless.

  merely taking a package laid aside for him.

  But steal a shirt? No!

  He was less than half-way to the door

  The auction tent was deserted, and the

  when Joe Ward, the owner of the tent, leaped stranger was hurried to the plaza. Behind him excitedly on to the counter and yelled:

  came trooping, from side streets and saloons,

  “Thief! Stop ’im! He’s stealin’ a pair

  hundreds who jostled and crowded for a place o’ shirts!”

  to see the punishment. A burly miner, more Hands grabbed the stranger, from all

  drunk than sober, was given a blacksnake and directions. The parcel was snatched away, the told to lay on twenty-five lashes.

  paper torn off, and two red flannel shirts were He had struck no more than five, and,

  disclosed.

  though the cotton shirt of the stranger was cut Shouts of “Brand him!” “Lynch him!”

  and blood oozed from the welts, Joe Ward

  “Whip him!” filled the air. The stranger interrupted the process of justice to declare seemed trying to explain, but he was so that he, as the injured party, was the proper roughly knocked about that he did not have a executioner of the sentence. He took the whip chance to speak. Besides, what could he say, and brought it hissing upon the back of the

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  2

  man.

  known to address a ruffian politely even as he When thirty lashes had been laid on—

  shot him down.

  for the first five did not count, having been Col. Sutherland made his way down

  administered by one not so entitled to serve toward the wharf and entered the Harlow

  justice as Ward was—the stranger was cut House, where after some inquiries he was loose from the post. Though he had made no shown up-stairs to a room, upon the door of outcry, tears were streaming down his face.

  which he rapped.

  He was told that he had just twenty minutes to

  “What is it, please?” said a woman’s

  get out of the self-respecting community that voice.

  would be no harbor for thieves.

  “Pardon me, madam,” replied the

  The stranger attempted to plead against

  colonel, looking at the door as if talking to the the sentence. His voice broke, and to those lady herself. “I b’lieve that I bring info’mation robust ears it seemed that he-whined.

  pe’taining to youah husban’.”

  He said that he had just arrived the day The door was opened; and the colonel

  before; that his wife was at the Harlow House.

  was confronted by a tall woman in shabby Couldn’t he be given time to see her? Besides, black. She had been crying. Tears were fresh he declared stubbornly that he had bought the in her eyes. She was nervous, afraid. But shirts and paid for them. He looked into neither the shabby black taffeta, the red eyes Ward’s bearded face as he said so. Ward and streamed cheeks nor the nervous promptly, emphatically called him a liar.

  fearfulness affected her poise or concealed her And the judgment of the crowd was

  soft beauty. The veriest scoundrel would at that he had wasted some four of his twenty once! have felt himself in the presence of a minutes in idle talk. As for his wife, the gentlewoman.

  Harlow House was a cheap joint near the

  water-front, where foreigners and other COL. £UTHERLAND was surprised. The undesirables hung out!

  Harlow House had an evil reputation. He

  “And, —— you, don’t you ever come

  stiffened his straight shoulders and bowed hat back, or you’ll be lynched!” Joe Ward shouted in hand.

  as the stranger started off with forlorn haste to

  “My husband? Is he hurt? I have been

  reach the city limits in fifteen minutes.

  so worried! Please—please—nothing has

  Now it happened that, when Col. happened to him?”

  Sutherland, seated on the veranda of the Her hands were tense at her breast, and

  boarding-house and smoking a cigar, her dark sad eyes were straining at the overheard remarks about the whipping, he colonel’s face.

  asked a few questions.

  Col. Sutherland had come to her

  “Colonel, you never liked Ward, but

  because he would go any place where he

  you ought t’ ’ve seen him handle that whip.

  heard that a woman was, or might be, in

  He done it proper!”

  distress. Women meant more to him than—

  The colonel thoughtfully smoked his

  well, than just women. He might possibly cigar out; then he stood up and straightened under pressure admit that some were bad, but his coat collar and tapped his narrow bow tie.

  he would probably insist that even these had He was a little man, very erect, dignified and their good points. But here was a woman of quiet. He was always in clean linen and extreme, of sensitive, refinement. It was broadcloth, and his manners were evident in her voice, her face, her bearing.

  ceremoniously polite. The colonel had been

  “Youah husban’ has met with a slight

  Col. Sutherland Intervenes 3

  misfo’tune. Do not be unduly alarmed. No, no.

  It was the owner of the store—introduced He is not—ah—not wounded. But—ah—

  himself to Frank. A very polite man—Mr.

  pa’don me, madam, but he has had the Fremont—or Freeman—that is it. Freeman, misfo’tune to be—be—suspected of stealin’.”

  Mr. Freeman.”

  The woman almost collapsed, but with

  “Freeman? Freeman?” The colonel

  an effort she maintained her poise. Very pondered the name.

  solemnly, with the quiet pathos of despair, as Cox had called to Ward, addressing

  if after all what did this latest misfortune mean him as Freeman. It was strange.

  to one who had had so many, she assured the

  “My husband,” she went on,

  colonel that it could not possibly be so; that

  “mentioned how courteous and interested Mr.

  Frank Cox was a man who would starve but Freeman was. We are strangers here—and

  would not steal.

  stopped in this hotel because it—i
ts price is The colonel—though he said nothing

  low. I am beginning to think it is not very of the whipping—related the evidence. To his desirable at any price. My husband, sir, has amazement Mrs. Cox insisted that her husband had much trouble. That is why we came to had bought those shirts out of a very slender California. Frank thought it would change our purse the day before. He had, she said, paid luck—as he called it.”

  for both, but the storekeeper—Ward kept the

  “Freeman? Freeman? Pa’don me,

  tent open as a store when no auction was madam, but did youah husband evah hear of a going on—had explained that there was only man by the name of Joe Ward?”

  one shirt of the size wanted in stock but that If the colonel had suddenly drawn his

  he would open a new stock and lay the parcel gun and thrown it into her face, she would not aside.

  have recoiled before him in more of a fright.

  “He told him,” she added, “just where

  She drew back with something like terror in the parcel would be and that Frank could her eyes.

  reach right over and get it.”

  “Madam, let me assure you that Mr.

  “Madam,” declared the colonel Ward is no frien’ of mine. If I mention his respectfully, “do not fo’ a moment presume name, it is only to ask if you could suggest that I doubt youah statement. But are you what motive he might have in wishin’ to

  sure?”

  accuse youah husban’ of stealin’!”

  “He showed Frank, exactly where the

  “Oh, my God! Again!” she moaned

  shirts would be. Told him to just come in and and leaned against the door post.

  get them. It was an auction room or

  Then something caught fire within her,

  something, and the storekeeper said that he and she told of how she had married Frank would probably be busy.”

  Cox against the wishes of Joseph Ward, who The colonel gently stroked his short,

  had offered himself as a husband—of I how black beard.

  Frank Cox had been accused of murdering and

  “My husband is in jail? May I see

  robbing a miserly old woman—of how he had him? Oh, I must see him!”

  been convicted and sentenced for life. She told The colonel explained that he did not

  of how she had never for a moment believed think it could be arranged at once, but her husband guilty—of how, when Ward had tomorrow—certainly. He added—

  gone to California in the gold rush, a half-idiot

  “Did youah husban’ chance to say who

  of a boy who had been the chief witness

  sold him the shirts?”

  confessed that Ward was the murderer and had

  “Yes, he did. Mentioned it particularly.

  paid and threatened him, the boy, into

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  4

  testifying that it was Cox—of how Cox had Finest made. Eight-plait rawhide—hear ’er been pardoned and they had come to go!” And he cracked the ten-foot whip over California to start over.

  the head of the crowd. “What am I bid?”

  The “colonel listened attentively, and,

  “Five dolla’s, suh,” said the colonel.

  when she had finished, he said—

  “Ten,” came an answer.

  “Pa’don me, but Ward did not wear a

  Joe Ward had two or three men on his

  bea’d when you knew him?”

  staff whose business it was to mingle with the

  “No. He was smooth-shaven.”

  crowd and judiciously run up the bids.

  “Uhuh,” said the colonel, and he “Fifteen, suh.”

  nodded understandingly.

  “Twenty.”

  Then he sent for a hack, and he took

  The colonel hesitated. Then, as if to

  Mrs. Cox with him to his boarding-house and leave his competitor far behind, he shot the introduced her to Mrs. Sutherland, who bid to thirty. And at thirty it went.

  instantly became as a mother.

  “There you are, Colonel. The finest

  And, though it was late in the whip this side o’ Denver. Fine as any made.”0

  afternoon, the colonel called for a buckboard Ward handed it down.

  and a blanket, and he drove in the direction Several people good-naturedly tossed

  that Cox had gone. He found him huddled

  remarks at the colonel over the bargain and as miserably in the shadow of a Mexican tent, to what he was going to do with it; but he while a fat old dirty woman with pity in her soberly drew the money from his purse and eyes and axle grease on her fingers rubbed the handed it up to Ward, and Ward put it into his bruised, torn back.

  pocket. He kept no books.

  That night Cox slept in the colonel’s

  “Just a little room, gentlemen,” said

  bed, and none knew that he had even come the colonel, pressing against those nearest back to town, for the blanket had concealed him.

  his features when he rode with the colonel.

  They gave back curiously, and Ward

  looked down grinning. It seemed that the THE next afternoon the auction tent was dignified little colonel was going to indulge in crowded. Joe Ward was on the table extolling some kind of a joke.

  his articles and bantering the men into bids.

  With a practiced hand the colonel

  Col. Sutherland came in, bowed tossed the lash into the air, and it came down slightly to greetings and slowly, with an angry swish, and the viperous rawhide unobstrusively, edged his way nearer to the curled around the waist of Joe Ward. He

  feet of the auctioneer. A silver watch went leaped nearly to the roof and howled all the amid strenuous bidding for four hundred and way up and down.

  seventy dollars, and Ward was feeling joyous

  “My ———,Colonel—a joke is a——

  in the knowledge of some four hundred per

  ” He was breathless with pain and surprise but cent profit.

  was desperately trying to take it as a joke.

  “Ah, Colonel,” he shouted down.

  Laughter rose and roared over the

  “Glad to see you. Any thing here you ’d like crowd. Then as suddenly came silence when to have put up?”

  the colonel began speaking.

  “I’m in need, suh, of a blacksnake,”

  “A joke, suh! I was nevah mo’e in

  said the colonel evenly, politely.

  earnest in my life, suh! Mr. Ward, you will be

  “Hey, Pete! Get out one o’ them good enough to explain to these gentlemen plaited rawhides with the shotted handle. present why you accused that gentleman

  Col. Sutherland Intervenes 5

  yeste’day of stealin’ shirts that he had paid fully.

  you fo’, suh!”

  The crowd was angry. They were

  The confusion of the damned was plain, direct men. They took a man’s honesty upon Ward. He had to answer, and he knew for granted until he proved otherwise, and that no matter what he said the crowd would their punishment was swift and severe. They believe Col. Sutherland: The colonel was one were reckless and hasty, perhaps, but they had of those men whose word is never doubted.

  dangerous men in their midst, and the

  “Now,

  Colonel—Colonel—I’ll

  tell

  bickerings of lawyers and legal whereases did you, Colonel—” Ward began placatingly.

  not appeal to them. Nor were the Californians

  “The gentleman’s name was Cox, Mr.

  of those days concerned with helping the Frank Cox, wasn’t it, suh?”

  justice of Eastern States.

  “Yes, yes. Frarik Cox. I did him a

  No questions were asked of those who

  favor once, and the blackguard——”

  came from all parts of the world. They were

  “
Yes, suh. He married the lady with

  often, until the Vigilantes arose, a little lax in whom you wished an alliance? Wasn’t that it, punishing the vicious among themselves. But, suh?”

  once these men of San Francisco were

  “I didn’t hold that against him, aroused, they dealt rigorous punishments Colonel. But murder—”

  summarily.

  “Yes, suh. Mu’der. An’ Mr. Cox was

  “You, suh,” said the colonel,

  sent to prison?”

  addressing Ward and by a gesture hushing the

  “Where he belongs. The——”

  crowd to silence, “can have youah choice, suh,

  “An’ you came to California an’ then

  of weapons at ten paces—or throw youahself heard that Cox had been pa’doned. But we upon the mercy o’ these gentlemen.”

  already knew youah name as Ward; so you

  Ward began to beg for mercy and

  couldn’t change it. But you raised a bea’d, promised to leave the town—to leave

  and, when you accidentally met Cox, you tol’

  California.

  him youah name was Freeman. An’ you—”

  “You’re ——— well right you will!” a

  the colonel went on and explained in detail miner shouted as he sprang forward and jerked how and why Ward had invented the scheme Ward from the table. And to the plaza the men to make Cox appear as a thief and get himself went, with Ward leading the way. As they whipped out of the town.

  marched, a man ran back and, forth with a big Snarls and growls and cries of “Lynch