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Updated: May 17, 2025
"Has she told you of what I said to her?" Cahill shook his head. "No, I haven't seen her. We've been taking account of stock all morning." "Then then you've heard nothing from her about me?" said Ranson. The post trader raised his head in surprise. "No. Captain Carr spoke to me about your arrest, and then said you wanted to see me first about something private."
Between believing in such a strange coincidence and that you did it, I'll be hanged if I don't believe you did it." "I don't blame you," said Ranson. "What can I do to set your mind at rest?" "Well, tell me exactly what persons knew that you meant to hold up the stage." "Curtis and Crosby; no one else." "Not even Cahill?"
"You'll go to Leavenworth for the rest of your life!" Ranson threw off the detaining hand, and ran behind the counter. From a lower shelf he snatched a red bandanna kerchief. From another he dragged a rubber poncho, and buttoned it high about his throat. He picked up the steel shears which lay upon the counter, and snipping two holes in the red kerchief, stuck it under the brim of his sombrero.
During the moments in which the two men eyed each other Ranson's smile disappeared. Cahill raised himself slowly as though with a great effort. "I done it," said Cahill, "for her. I done it to make her happy." "That's all right," said Ranson, briskly. "She's going to be happy. We're all going to be happy."
"Why, I can't tell HIM. But if you are harsh with him or with me it will break my heart. For as I love you, father, I love him and it has got to be. It must be. For I love him so. I have always loved him. Father," she whispered, "I love him so." Ranson, humbly, gratefully, took the girl's hand and led her gently to the veranda and closed the door upon her.
Mary Cahill, her face glowing with pride and besieged with blushes, came toward them from the veranda. She was laughing and radiant, but she turned her eyes on Ranson with a look of tender reproach. "Why did you desert me?" she said. "It was awful. They are calling you now. They are playing 'The Conquering Hero." "Mr. Cahill," commanded Ranson, "go out there and make a speech."
"He's such an important witness," he cried, delightedly, "that first he's afraid I'll poison him and he won't drink with me, and now he covers me with a gun." Reluctantly, Cahill drew out his hand. "I was putting the bridle on my pony last night," he said. "He bit me." Ranson exclaimed sympathetically, "Oh, that's too bad," he said. "Well, you know you want to be careful.
Crosby strode among them, looking neither to the left nor right, and touched Lieutenant Ranson upon the shoulder. "The colonel's orders, Lieutenant Ranson," he said. "You are under arrest." Ranson leaned back against the music-rack and placed his glass upon the keyboard. One leg was crossed over the other, and he did not remove it. "Then you can't take a joke," he said in a low tone.
He says he fired to disarm the man, and that he saw him shift his gun to his left hand. It was the shot that the man fired when he held his gun in his left that broke the colonel's arm. Now, everybody knows I can't hit a barn with my left. And as for having any wounds concealed about my person" Ranson turned his hands like a conjurer to show the front and back "they can search me.
When you went to hold up the stage you took a poncho and a kerchief. That should have left ten of each. But when I counted them this morning there were nine red kerchiefs and nine ponchos." Ranson slapped his knee sharply. "Good!" he said. "That is interesting." "What does it prove?" demanded Cahill. "It proves nothing, or it proves everything," said Miss Cahill.
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