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Title: Too many heroes
Author: Ray Humphreys
Release date: October 1, 2026 [eBook #79701]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Street & Smith Corporation, 1929
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79701
Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOO MANY HEROES ***
Too Many Heroes
By Ray Humphreys
Author of “Grandpa Takes ’Em for a Ride,” etc.
“Whar in thunder have yuh been all mawnin’?” demanded Sheriff Joe Cook
of Monte Vista, as his deputy, “Shorty” McKay, strolled into the office
at noon. “I been lookin’ fer yuh up one side o’ the town an’ down the
other!”
“I’ve been in the public library, boss,” said Shorty, as soothingly as
he could; but the sheriff was in no mood to be calmed by soft words. The
daring robbery of the Second National Bank the day before, when a lone,
masked bandit had made a successful get-away with three thousand dollars
in bank cash, had put the sheriff in bad humor.
“Been in the library, eh?” snarled Sheriff Cook angrily. “Been readin’
up on how to ketch bank robbers, no doubt, in some ol’ book that some
nut wrote a hundred years ago, I suppose! A lot o’ help yuh are—an’,
say, yuh wasn’t in the library, after all, come to think o’ it, ’cause I
stuck my haid in thar lookin’.”
“I left thar about eleven o’clock,” said Shorty meekly, “so yuh musta
been thar after that, boss. I left thar an’ went over to the Monte Vista
_Clarion_ office fer a bit——”
“Blabbin’ about how yuh was intendin’ to ketch the robber, I reckon!”
cut in Sheriff Cook hotly.
“No, lookin’ up the ol’ files thar,” said Shorty quickly. “Yuh see,
boss, thar’s a big feelin’ in town here that—waal, that the town oughter
do somethin’ handsome fer Max Hill, that hero cow-punch! Max might have
got that bank robber ef luck had been with him.”
“We gotta git that bank robber, whether luck is with us or not!” said
the sheriff tartly. “An’ as fer Max Hill——”
“He’s the hero o’ the hour!” reminded Shorty.
“Yes, he’s the hero o’ the hour, right enough,” admitted the sheriff,
“but what has that got to do with yuh wastin’ yuhr hull mawnin’ between
the public library an’ the Monte Vista _Clarion_ office? We got to git
the robber—clews or no clews. Gosh knows we’ve lost enough time already
without yuh vanishin’ fer a mawnin’ an’ holdin’ up matters! We gotta git
downright busy.”
Shorty grinned brazenly at his nettled boss.
“On what clews?” he asked meaningly. “Yuh know waal as I do, boss, we’ve
run down every idear we got! Nobody recognized that cooky as did the job
at the bank. He went in at noon, when everybody but Jim Holcomb, the
cashier, was out. He locked Jim in the vault, scooped up the cash, an’
blowed, an’ nobody seen him blowin’, after Jim Holcomb had touched off
the big gong alarm, but Max Hill. Max shot at him, but had no luck, an’
the robber disappeared—an’ left us with absolutely nuthin’ to start work
on.”
“I know all that, Shorty.”
“We chases up one road an’ down another,” went on Shorty swiftly; “we
has a posse scramblin’ hither an’ thither, but thar ain’t no clews!
Holcomb kain’t identify the bandit, an’ neither kin Max Hill; an’ the
robber seems to have vanished right inter the earth. We has nuthin’ to
go on, boss, as I said, an’ while we is markin’ time, waitin’ fer
somethin’ to kinda turn up, I kinda thought it would be nice fer us to
take the initiative in arrangin’ an affair in honor o’ Hero Hill, jus’
to show our appreciation o’ his efforts to shoot the bandit.”
Sheriff Cook’s eyebrows went up in a questioning arch.
“An affair?” he asked. “What kind o’ an affair?”
“Waal,” said Shorty, “the town should show honor to Max Hill in a
substantial way. But we’ve had other heroes in Monte before this. So I
got the idear that we could avoid jealousies an’ the like by havin’ a
big congress o’ heroes right here in town, to pay homage to Max Hill in
the fust place, an’ to honor all the livin’ local heroes in the second
place—speeches, music, mebbe a barbecue, a dance, a general good time.”
“Yeh?” drawled the sheriff, narrowing his gray eyes.
“Yeh!” agreed Shorty. “So I was over to the library lookin’ up the files
o’ the ol’ Monte Vista _Bugle_, which went extinct ten years ago. Then I
looked up the _Clarion_ files, too, makin’ a list o’ all the fellers as
could be considered heroes. Oh, yes, I was over to the chamber o’
commerce, too, seein’ Bill Webster, the secretary, about sendin’ out the
invitations to the different heroes fer Thursday, an’ he agreed. Then I
saw the mayor an’ got his promise o’ coöperation, along with the city
council; an’ I talked to Wade Mountford about arrangin’ the barbecue,
an’ to Tom Hartsell about the music—the Hartsell Happy Harmonizers will
play fer us. Mebbe yuh could make a speech, boss, an’——”
The sheriff got to his feet suddenly.
“Yes, dang yuh, Shorty, I kin make a speech, an’ I’m gonna make it right
now an’ not wait until day after to-morrow to do so!” The sheriff
pointed an accusing finger at Shorty. “The great trouble with yuh, Sap,
is that yuh kain’t ever foller a main idear in nuthin’. What we got to
do fust is to git that robber, afore we go entertainin’ any heroes. That
entertainin’ business is a secondary consideration. Fust, we gotta git
the robber.”
“How?” demanded Shorty suddenly.
“I dunno,” said the sheriff, frankly enough now that he was too angry to
mince words; “but we gotta git him. We won’t git him holdin’ no congress
o’ heroes! Yuh drap that idear until later. Yuh go git yuhr hoss an’
start ridin’—makin’ every dog-gone ranch on the Gun Barrel Road. I’ll
make all the places on the Wagon Wheel Gap Road. It’s a cinch that
robber didn’t git through any o’ the towns on the main roads, seein’ we
had ’em all warned half a hour after the robbery. He must be hidin’ out
here in the valley. We gotta run a fine comb over it fer him.”
“An’ all we know is—from the cashier an’ Max Hill—that the robber was
tall, masked, dressed in cowboy clothes, an’ rode a bay hoss,” said
Shorty. “Thar’s a thousand men in the valley would answer that
description. It’s like lookin’ fer a haystack in a needle, as the poet
said. It’s hopeless.”
“It ain’t hopeless,” retorted the sheriff.
“Waal——”
“Shorty, yuh do as I tell yuh afore I loses my temper in earnest an’
swings a jolt off yuhr jaw!” said the sheriff sullenly. “Git goin’! Git
goin’! Yuh hear me—git goin’!”
Shorty got going, naturally enough, but he did not go far. He put the
saddle on his pony and rode around a few blocks, hiding the horse in a
feed stable and hastening off to the city hall to further arrange
matters for the congress of heroes. The idea, Shorty had discovered, had
caught on like wildfire. It appealed to the popular fancy. The mayor and
the council were for it whole-heartedly. So was the Monte Vista
_Clarion_. So was everybody in town, it appeared, except the sheriff.
Every one felt that Max Hill, the Perry Park cow poke, deserved some
sort of recognition for his efforts to balk the holdup—even if those
efforts had been in vain.
The whole town knew what Max Hill had tried to do. Max had admitted it,
bashfully, after Lew Walker, the hardware dealer, had spread the story.
Max was in the Walker store, just putting some shells into a new rifle
he had purchased, when the big gong alarm over the front door of the
Second National Bank, across the street, had begun to sound. It was the
noon hour and few persons were on the street. At the sound of the alarm,
which Cashier Holcomb had set off the minute the bandit had locked him
in the vault, Lew Walker, who was in the back of the store, had yelled
to Max Hill:
“Max, that’s the bank robbery alarm goin’!”
“I know it!” Max had cried, making for the front door, rifle in hand. He
had raised it to his shoulder and was ready when the tall, masked bandit
had run from the bank, making for his waiting bay horse. Max had fired,
but—unfortunately—he had missed. And before Max could fire a second
time, the robber had spurred around the corner out of sight. There had
been immediate confusion. A posse was in the saddle inside of fifteen
minutes, but the bandit had vanished. And he had left no clews. So all
the townfolks could do, after the excitement had cooled off, was to
congratulate Max Hill on his nerve and daring, even if he had not hit
the robber.
“He may have hit him,” said Lew Walker proudly, “fer it was a good
rifle, an’ Max is a good shot; but ef he did hit him, he didn’t git him
in a vital spot.”
“I don’t think I hit him,” said the truthful Max Hill. He seemed quite
abashed by the attention paid him. The fact that he had missed the
bandit seemed to weigh heavily on him. Modesty—or regret—had sealed his
lips. He refused to talk much of the matter, merely shaking his head
sadly at any mention of it.
“All I kin say is that I’m sorry,” Max had announced.
But the town knew that Max deserved some token of appreciation. There
were mighty few men in Monte Vista who would have acted so quickly and
so utterly without thought of personal safety as had Max. He had not
wasted a second getting to the door. He had fired almost instantly. The
sad fact that he had missed could not be blamed on him. It was a pot
shot, at best. He had been using a brand-new rifle. The bandit had been
quick as a cat, too. So when Shorty had broached the idea of the
celebration to honor Max and all the other unsung heroes of the old cow
town, Monte Vista had agreed with a whoop.
The arrangements for the congress of heroes went on steadily. Shorty did
not ride the Gun Barrel Road that afternoon, as the sheriff had ordered.
He knew—or rather felt—that it was a wild-goose chase. He laughed
frequently as he busied himself with the celebration arrangements,
thinking what Sheriff Cook would say if he only knew what was going on.
But the sheriff did not know, luckily. The invitations to the congress
of heroes went out to the heroes on that afternoon’s mail. The sheriff,
coming in late in the evening from his fruitless ride along the Wagon
Wheel Gap Road, found Shorty waiting with a report for him.
“The bandit,” said Shorty, “don’t seem to be anywhars around the Gun
Barrel section. Yuh git any trace o’ him, boss?”
“No, I never,” admitted the sheriff sullenly. “To-morrow we tries the
other two roads, Shorty—the Alamosa an’ the Red Cliff Pikes. Yuh kin
take one an’ I’ll take the other. It’s about all that we kin do, I’m
afraid. I reckon the scamp has given us the slip.”
But Shorty rode neither the Alamosa nor the Red Cliff Pikes the next
day. The sheriff rode the latter, and he thought that Shorty was
patrolling the former. But not Shorty. There were a thousand-and-one
items to attend to in final preparation for the congress of heroes, and
Shorty, as originator and chairman of the committee in charge, was busy.
Wednesday night found everything arranged for the celebration on the
morrow. The grand jubilee was to open at noon with a rally in the park,
where the Hartsell Happy Harmonizers would render a selection entitled
“See, the Conquerin’ Hero Comes!” and after that Mayor Louie Swift would
welcome the heroes, introducing them to the crowd. Then would follow
speeches by the city councilmen, prominent citizens, and the local
preachers. The city marshal, Art Wachter, would then pin pretty red,
white, and blue ribbons on the breasts of the manly heroes, decorating
them, as it were. The sheriff would speak—perhaps—and after that would
come the great barbecue, more music, and the afternoon and evening would
be devoted to games and dancing.
Sheriff Cook, coming in “dog tired,” as he expressed it, from his long
day in the saddle on the Red Cliff Road, heard with indifference that
the town had just completed all arrangements for the big congress of
heroes’ celebration set for the following day in Monte Vista.
“Waal,” he sighed sadly, “I guess that’s about all we got left to do,
Shorty, come to think o’ it. We kin pay honor to Max Hill an’ figger
we’re doin’ our duty. Thar wasn’t a trace o’ hide or hair o’ that bandit
monkey on the Red Cliff Road. I went to every ranch in that territory.
How about yuh an’ the Alamosa Road?”
Shorty carefully crossed his fingers behind his back.
“Boss,” he said, choosing his words with precision, “I fell down, too.
It’s a blame shame, all right enough! Mebbe after the celebration fer
Max we kin start all over ag’in.”
The day for the congress of heroes broke clear and cool. The streets
were jammed early by the incoming ranchers and folks from as far away as
Gunsight, Como, Squaw Mountain, Globeville, Cherry Hills, and Lakewood.
The heroes began to dribble in, most of them on horseback, and some of
them accompanied by their families in buckboards. Most of them came in
with startled, awed expressions, because, until they had received the
invitations to appear, they had not realized that they were heroes. It
was a tardy celebration for some of them, who had performed their deeds
of valor many years before. But the crowds were happy. Frontier Park was
soon crowded. The Hartsell Happy Harmonizers were on the job, tooting
away. Popcorn and peanut venders were in competition with the band.
Mayor Louie Swift and Marshal Art Wachter and Deputy Shorty McKay were
bustling around. Monte Vista was all set to honor her heroes in splendid
style.
When noon came, the congress of heroes assembled on the wooden platform
erected in the center of the infield at Frontier Park. There were seven
heroes on hand, it appeared, including the hero of the hour—Max Hill. He
seemed quite uncomfortable, but he tried to grin despite his
embarrassment. A couple of the remaining six heroes were right at home,
however, perfectly willing to be lionized, it seemed. The remainder
appeared to be like Hill, doubtful as to the why and the wherefore of
all this fuss. The Hartsell Happy Harmonizers opened the program with a
raucous selection that drowned out the popcorn and peanut peddlers
without difficulty. Sheriff Cook, arriving late—and disgusted—took a
seat on the platform.
“Ladies an’ gents,” said Mayor Swift, rising after the music had ceased,
“it is with the greatest o’ pleasure that I stands here to introduce to
yuh all the great heroes o’ Monte Vister—men who have unselfishly risked
life an’ limb, dared death an’ disaster, _pooh-poohed_ at danger in
various forms, to render assistance to their feller man! They are worthy
successors, these seven heroes o’ Monte Vister, to that great ol’ hero
o’ ancient times, as Mr. McKay told me about this mawnin’—Nero, who
fiddled while ol’ Rome burned, riskin’ his life to finish a public
concert despite the cracklin’ o’ great flames all around him.”
There was thunderous applause from the spectators.
“An’ speakin’ o’ flames,” went on Mayor Swift grandly, making a great
arch with the fat, black, smoking cigar he held in his right hand, “I
desires to introduce to yuh at this time the fust o’ our famous heroes
that yuh sees gathered here on this platform with us in Monte Vister
to-day! I refers to Mr. Terrell Davis, the gent with the whiskers on the
far left end, who so distinguished hisself fifteen years ago, when,
unaided an’ with overwhelmin’ nerve, he run into the burnin’ Doc Brown
livery stable an’ drug out four valuable saddle hosses, worth all o’ a
hundred bucks per each, at a loss o’ his own eyebrows an’ a wallet
containin’ three dollars in cash which he lost while gropin’ in the
smoke fer the halter straps!”
The crowd roared its appreciation as Terrell Davis rose bashfully and
bobbed his head to the applause.
Doc Brown, in the audience, cupped his hands, at the height of the
uproar, and shouted a correction to Mayor Swift:
“I later sold one o’ them rescued hosses fer one hundred and twenty
dollars,” he cried, “tharby increasin’ my gratitude to Mr. Davis by
twenty dollars. I say, three whoopees fer Terrell Davis—hip, hip,
hooray!”
The crowd joined in on the three cheers.
“An’ next, in the way they are seated, is a man who needs no
introduction to yuh all to-day—Mr. Max Hill, famous cow poke, who is our
latest hero!” roared Mayor Swift. “He, without so much as a moment’s
hesitation, seized up a rifle from the Lew Walker hardware-store counter
an’ blazed away at the dare-devil bandit who had robbed the Second
National Bank here day before yesterday! It wasn’t Mr. Hill’s fault that
he didn’t wing that robber—mebbe he did wing him—but the feller didn’t
drap. It was not Hill’s fault that he didn’t drap! Max was handlin’ a
new rifle, an’ in this day an’ age rifles are not what they was once,
when our grandfathers hunted the U-tays an’ the Sigh-Ox Injuns in this
valley.”
There was another burst of thunderous applause, and another man arose in
the audience, cupped his hands, and shouted. He was Lew Walker, the
hardware dealer.
“Thar wasn’t nuthin’ wrong with that rifle!” he protested indignantly.
“I guarantee my rifles and I resents any such——”
But the crowd paid no heed. Mayor Swift was talking again.
“I now interduce the next hero, Mr. Al Cooper, who stopped that runaway
stage on the Platte River Road twelve years ago, steppin’ in front o’
said gallopin’ hosses an’ wavin’ his hat so furiously that stage
stopped!” said Mayor Swift. “Give him a hand, folks. That’s the
ticket—hooray fer Al Cooper!”
“An’ now,” said the mayor, as the applause for Al Cooper subsided, “we
go to our fourth hero, Mr. Earl Carpenter—the man who bravely swum
Cherry Creek the time o’ the great spring flood, rescuin’ several
families on the western bank by warnin’ them o’ the high waters, an’
leadin’ them an’ all their live stock, includin’ a large flock o’
imported Tottenberger—I think they was—goats to a cliff whar all was
safe. Mr. Carpenter!”
Again the park rocked with the clapping and shouting of the thousands of
hero worshipers. Mr. Carpenter rose and bowed.
“In addition to the three families an’ the goats,” he said loudly, “thar
was a number o’ Holstein milch keows, a maverick brindle steer, four
span young mules, two aged mares, a smooth-mouthed geldin’, three colts,
a shepherd dawg, an’ one cat!”
“Hooray fer Earl Carpenter!” yelled the crowds.
“Our fifth hero is Mr. Jack Elliott,” went on Mayor Swift, “the man who
got the Christmas mail through the ice blockade here years ago, bein’
forced to straddle a buckin’ broncho to do so! When his own hoss slipped
an’ fell on the ice on Berthoud Pass, Mr. Elliott caught up an unbroke
hoss in a snow drift, mounted him, an’ rid him inter town with the mail
sack over his shoulder, said mail bein’ distributed in record time right
here in Monte Vister, when the hoss started to buck, throwin’ Mr.
Elliott so hard that one insured package was busted, likewise Mr.
Elliott’s left ankle which laid him up in bed for two weeks.”
“I made good fer that insured package!” cried Elliott, above the
applause. “It cost me one dollar and thirty-four cents to do it, too!”
“Our sixth hero,” went on Mayor Swift, with a grand gesture toward the
right of the line of blushing heroes, “is none other than Mr. ‘Ace’
Barnhart, the man who was the fust youth to offer hisself as a
sacrifice—a hooman sacrifice, folks—fer the new doctor to vaccinate in
the fever scare here years ago! We all had our doubts about the doctor
an’ his needle jabbin’, but Ace was brave enough to volunteer, comin’
through fine, although it was afterward learned that the doctor was a
fake an’ that he had vaccinated Ace with plain water. Three cheers fer
Ace Barnhart!”
The crowds applauded wildly.
“Our seventh an’ final hero is”—Mayor Louie Swift hesitated and glanced
at the slip of paper he held in his hand, as if in doubt—“he is—Mr.
‘Pud’ Gregory, who, I am reliably informed, distinguished hisself as a
hero when he shot a bad man here some years ago jus’ when said bad man
was about to plug a half dozen holes through an innercent an’ unarmed
citizen. Three cheers fer Mr. Pud Gregory, folks—let ’er rip!”
The crowd let loose, but almost instantly Shorty McKay, who had been
seated on the platform, jumped to his feet. He ran out in front of the
mayor, holding up both hands for silence. The crowd, amazed, subsided,
just in time to hear Shorty shout.
“This man Gregory is a dog-gone impostor!” whooped Shorty. “His name was
put on the list through a error! He ain’t no hero! It’s all a mistake!
He’s such a coward that he hadn’t nerve enough to explain things to us,
but he comes up here with the real heroes to be honored! Gregory a
hero—bah! I hereby arrests him fer false pretenses, impersonatin’ a
hero, an’ receivin’ undue applause.”
The deputy laid violent hands on the surprised Gregory.
The crowd was in a furor immediately. There were many who had not
understood all that Shorty had said and were astounded at his treatment
of the man Gregory. There were others who, hearing the deputy’s
explanation and knowing Shorty was always on the square, were heart and
soul behind Shorty. Yells and catcalls, shouts and hisses, went up.
Mayor Swift sought to intervene. The sheriff got to his feet, yelling at
Shorty. Marshal Wachter was up, adding to the din. The city councilmen
were in confusion. Even Max Hill and the other distinguished heroes were
in the mêlée, but Shorty, wasting no time, dragged his unlucky captive,
Gregory, down from the platform and hustled him off across the field,
where the crowd was thinnest. It was plain that Gregory was going to
jail!
The congress of heroes threatened to break up in a riot.
“Gentlemen,” cried Mayor Swift, taking the situation in hand, “please to
be calm! This ain’t no way to pay honor to our great hero guests. I
assure yuh all will turn out nice! We’ll find out about Gregory—quiet
now, everybody—while City Marshal Art Wachter, assisted by Doc Brown,
comes up here an’ pins the honorary badges o’ red, white, an’ blue on
the breasts o’ our heroes! This way, Art an’ Doc—quiet everybody,
please! Yuh two gents arguin’ thar in front please postpone yuhr fight
until later.”
The crowd calmed gradually at the mayor’s insistent urging. There was a
lot of murmuring, however. A few in the throng ran out after the
disappearing Shorty and his protesting prisoner, Gregory; and among
those who ran was Sheriff Joe Cook, bubbling over with indignation. Max
Hill, the hero of the hour, also galloped out across the field. The bulk
of the crowd remained for the rest of the hero program, however. By the
time the sheriff, angered at what he termed his deputy’s rash
imprudence, reached the Monte Vista jail, Shorty had his prisoner safely
locked up in a cell. The sheriff had barely started to upbraid Shorty
for rashness, when in came the breathless Max Hill, the hero of the
hour, red-faced and raging.
“Shorty!” cried Max, interrupting the sheriff’s hot flow of words,
“what’s the idear o’ draggin’ Gregory off like yuh did? Whar is he? That
ain’t no way to bust up a program!”
“So I said!” put in Sheriff Cook.
“Gregory’s in jail,” said Shorty, scowling at Max Hill; “he’s a danged
faker. I don’t know how his name got on the list, or how he come to have
the nerve to git up on that platform when he must ’a’ knowed he was
invited through a error.”
Max Hill’s face was now livid with rage.
“Error nuthin’,” he cried furiously! “I know that Gregory bird! I’ll
tell yuh all somethin’—I was the innercent an’ unarmed citizen he saved
from bein’ murdered years ago by ‘Slats’ Langer, the gunman. It was
Gregory as saved my life—shootin’ Slats at risk o’ his own, after Slats
had already drawed his weapon.”
Shorty, instead of showing anger, laughed softly.
“Oh, is that so, Max?” he asked. “I didn’t know yuh knowed Gregory. It
all happened—what yuh say happened—so long ago that yuh must ’a’ been
jus’ a mere kid. Yuh ain’t never been very chummy with Gregory, ef he
did save yuhr life as yuh claim! How come that?”
“I never knowed the man’s name as saved me that day,” said Max Hill
sadly, “because I was, as yuh say, jus’ a kid. An’ the man didn’t wait
to interduce hisself after he shot Slats. But I recognized Gregory the
minnit I saw him on the platform ter-day as the man who had saved me;
an’ the mayor’s introduction o’ Gregory substantiated it when he tol’
how Gregory had saved an innercent citizen from a bad man. It was
Gregory that saved me. I recognized him easy by his stooped shoulders,
the way he holds his head to one side, an’——”
“Yuh recognized him the other day, too!” yelled Shorty.
“What?” asked Hill.
“Yuh recognized him the other day, too, I said!” repeated Shorty
sternly. “I’ll tell yuh what I got Gregory in jail fer, Max. I got him
in the coop fer bank robbery! He’s confessed. An’ I say ag’in that yuh
recognized him the other day when yuh saw that bank robber comin’ out o’
the Second State Bank, Max—that’s why yuh missed him. Yuh might as well
own up to that!”
Max Hill’s face had gone chalky white. He looked from Shorty to the
startled sheriff. Then he nodded his head.
“Ef he’s confessed,” he said wearily, “I guess I might as waal admit
that I did recognize him, Shorty, as yuh say; an’ that that was the
reason I didn’t kill him—gratitude, I reckon, fer what he did to me. But
I didn’t know his name until to-day—an’——”
Max Hill choked up suddenly.
“It was Gregory robbed the bank, wasn’t it?” persisted Shorty.
“Yes,” said Hill, and he sighed in evident relief.
“Yuh go back to the celebration, Max,” said Shorty kindly. “I guess yuh
better not say anything about this, either. But I don’t blame yuh
altogether fer not squawkin’ on Gregory. Yuh didn’t know his name,
although yuh might have told us the truth why yuh didn’t shoot him
comin’ out o’ the bank. Yuh go along, Max, we’ll have to have yuh appear
later agin’ Gregory; but jus’ now yuh’re needed at the celebration. Go
on back, brace up, an’ keep mum.”
“All right,” said the unhappy Hill, and departed.
“Great guns!” exploded Sheriff Cook, wiping his forehead with his
handkerchief. “How yuh do it, Shorty, beats me! How did yuh know it was
Gregory pulled the bank job, an’ how did yuh make him confess so quick?
I don’t git it.”
Shorty laughed again.
“He ain’t confessed yet,” he said, “but he will, as soon as he knows Max
Hill has identified him. I had to let Max think he had confessed. An’ I
never was sure it was Gregory did the robbery until Max Hill admitted it
here a second ago. Fust off, boss, we had no clews to go on. The bank
cashier, bein’ new in town, hadn’t recognized Gregory. We had guarded
the roads an’ notified the other towns, however, so the robber couldn’t
git outta the valley. Apparently, he never tried to do so. That meant
the robber was a local feller.
“I got to thinkin’ it was mighty funny that Max Hill, bein’ so
fortunately near at the time, an’ such a crack shot, hadn’t hit the
bandit. Thar was some talk that he had hit him, but not in a vital spot.
I examined the front o’ the bank buildin’ carefully, with a ladder, an’
found whar Hill’s bullet had struck, away up high, above the door. A
good shot like Max couldn’t have missed like that, unless purposely. Max
was so queerly silent, too. I knowed, o’ course, that Max was too honest
to be in on the robbery, but I got to thinkin’ why Max would have
purposely failed to hit the man. I decided that Max did miss purposely,
an’ all because he recognized the man at the moment before he fired. He
didn’t have time to figger out an alibi why he shouldn’t fire at all—so
he shot—but shot high!
“Why should Max pertect a bank robber? It could be nuthin’ but a case of
gratitude. Who had ever done anything fer Max? I looked up the old
files, findin’ that ol’ story about the killin’ o’ Slats Langer, bad
man, years ago, by an unknown hero jus’ as Slats was about to plug Max
in a drunken fury. The newspaper accounts said that no one knew just who
had fired from the hip to save Max, but the account did name the men in
the place at the time—Jean Bosquet, Harry Tarvin, Horace Stewart, Ralph
Brady, Pud Gregory. A little interviewin’ o’ ol’-timers developed the
fact that Pud was thought to have been the man, although he had never
bragged o’ it, an’ the indifferent investigation at the time hadn’t
proved it.
“So I had to figure a way to git Pud in town; git him to admit bein’ the
hero o’ the ol’ gun fight; see that Max recognized him; git Pud in jail,
an’ pretend to Max that he had confessed the bank robbery. I decided on
the congress o’ heroes. I had the mayor, who was in with me on the
scheme, sound out Pud, an’ Pud admitted that he was the ol’-time hero o’
the gun fight that saved Max Hill years ago.
“I saw Max start as he recognized Gregory on the hero stand to-day. When
I accused Gregory o’ bein’ a faker, I figured Max Hill would be right
around to stand up fer the man who had saved his life. Then, springin’
the bank confession on Max, I thought Max would admit it. He did. Yuh
see, boss, Max wasn’t intentionally shieldin’ Gregory, seein’ Max didn’t
know Gregory by name; but Max did purposely miss the bandit because o’
gratitude—he couldn’t kill the man who had saved him. All I needed,
therefore, was to parade the bandit afore Max ag’in, see Max recognize
him, have Max come to his aid when I accused Gregory o’ fakin’, an’ then
kid Max inter admittin’ it was Gregory he recognized comin’ out o’ the
bank. Simple enough, wasn’t it?”
Sheriff Cook gulped before he replied.
“Simple enough,” he grunted, “ef yuh got a scrambled brain, Shorty, as
kin work around in forty-eleven different directions all to once an’
wind up coherently, after all—like yuh has! I reckon we might as waal go
an’ git a confession from Gregory, after which we kin return to the
congress o’ heroes; an’ ef I don’t miss my guess, I’ll nominate yuh fer
that vacant cheer once occupied by Pud Gregory. Any man as kin think
backward, forward, sideways, and upside down, all to once, is a hero
sure enough! An’ I reckon the crowd, hearin’ yuh jailed the bank robber,
will give yuh more applause than it gave all the other six heroes put
together—an’ I don’t mean mebbe!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
This etext was produced from _Western Story Magazine_, March 30, 1929.
Obvious typographical and printing errors have been corrected without
note. Period spellings, inconsistent hyphenation, and the author’s
punctuation and dialect have otherwise been left as printed.
Italic text is shown _like this_.
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