第77章

PEACEFUL RETURNS

That afternoon when the four-thirty-five rushed in from the parched desert and slid to a panting halt beside the station platform, Peaceful Hart emerged from the smoker, descended quietly to the blistering planks, and nodded through the open window to Miss Georgie at her instrument taking train orders.

Behind him perspired Baumberger, purple from the heat and the beer with which he had sought to allay the discomfort of that searing sunlight.

"Howdy, Miss Georgie?" he wheezed, as he passed the window.

"Ever see such hot weather in your life? _I_ never did."Miss Georgie glanced at him while her fingers rattled her key, and it struck her that Baumberger had lost a good deal of his oily amiability since she saw him last. He looked more flabby and loose-lipped than ever, and his leering eyes were streaked plainly with the red veins which told of heavy drinking. She gave him a nod cool enough to lower the thermometer several degrees, and scribbled away upon the yellow pad under her hand as if Baumberger had sunk into the oblivion her temper wished for him. She looked up immediately, however, and leaned forward so that she could see Peaceful just turning to go down the steps.

"Oh, Mr. Hart! Will you wait a minute?" she called clearly above the puffing of the engine. "I've something for you here. Soon as I get this train out--" She saw him stop and turn back to the office, and let it go at that for the present.

"I sure have got my nerve," she observed mentally when the conductor had signaled the engineer and swung up the steps of the smoker, and the wheels were beginning to clank. All she had for Peaceful Hart in that office was anxiety over his troubles.

"Just held him up to pry into his private affairs," she put it bluntly to herself. But she smiled at him brightly, and waited until Baumberger had gone lumbering with rather uncertain steps to the store, where he puffed up the steps and sat heavily down in the shade where Pete Hamilton was resting after the excitement of the past thirty-six hours.

"I lied to you, Mr. Hart," she confessed, engagingly. "I haven't a thing for you except a lot of questions, and I simply must ask them or die. I'm not just curious, you know. I'm horribly anxious. Won't you take the seat of honor, please? The ranch won't run off if you aren't there for a few minutes after you had expected to be. I've been waiting to have a little talk with you, and I simply couldn't let the opportunity go by." She talked fast, but she was thinking faster, and wondering if this calm, white-bearded old man thought her a meddlesome fool.

"There's time enough, and it ain't worth much right now,"Peaceful said, sitting down in the beribboned rocker and stroking his beard in his deliberate fashion. "It seems to be getting the fashion to be anxious," he drawled, and waited placidly for her to speak.

"You just about swear by old Baumberger, don't you?" she began presently, fiddling with her lead pencil and going straight to the heart of what she wanted to say.

"Well, I dunno. I've kinda learned to fight shy of swearing by anybody, Miss Georgie." His mild blue eyes settled attentively upon her flushed face.

"That's some encouragement, anyhow," she sighed. "Because he's the biggest old blackguard in Idaho and more treacherous than any Indian ever could be if he tried. I just thought I'd tell you, in case you didn't know it. I'm certain as I can be of anything, that he's at the bottom of this placer-claim fraud, and he's just digging your ranch out from under your feet while he wheedles you into thinking he's looking after your interests. I'll bet you never got an injunction against those eight men," she hazarded, leaning toward him with her eyes sparkling as the subject absorbed all her thoughts. "I'll bet anything he kept you fiddling around until those fellows all filed on their claims. And now it's got to go till the case is finally settled in court, because they are technically within their rights in making lawful improvements on their claims.

"Grant," she said, and her voice nearly betrayed her when she spoke his name, "was sure they faked the gold samples they must have used in filing. We both were sure of it. He and the boys tried to catch them at some crooked work, but the nights have been too dark, for one thing, and they were always on the watch, and went up to Shoshone in couples, and there was no telling which two meant to sneak off next. So they have all filed, Isuppose. I know the whole eight have been up--""Yes, they've all filed--twenty acres apiece--the best part of the ranch. There's a forty runs up over the bluff; the lower line takes in the house and barn and down into the garden where the man they call Stanley run his line through the strawberry patch. That forty's mine yet. It's part uh the homestead. The meadowland is most all included. That was a preemption claim."Peaceful spoke slowly, and there was a note of discouragement in his voice which it hurt Miss Georgie to hear.

"Well, they've got to prove that those claims of theirs are lawful, you know. And if you've got your patent for the homestead--you have got a patent, haven't you?" Something in his face made her fling in the question.

"Y-es--or I thought I had one," he answered dryly. "It seems now there's a flaw in it, and it's got to go back to Washington and be rectified. It ain't legal till that's been done."Miss Georgie half rose from her chair, and dropped back despairingly. "Who found that mistake?" she demanded.

"Baumberger?"