Tangled Trails

Tangled Trails, by William
MacLeod Raine

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Raine
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Title: Tangled Trails A Western Detective Story
Author: William MacLeod Raine

Release Date: November 14, 2005 [eBook #17066]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TANGLED
TRAILS***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

TANGLED TRAILS

A Western Detective Story
by
WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
Author of The Big-Town Round-Up, Gunsight Pass, Etc.

Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York Made in the United States of
America Copyright, 1921, by William Macleod Raine All Rights
Reserved Third Impression, March, 1922

CONTENTS
I. NO ALTRUIST II. WILD ROSE TAKES THE DUST III. FOR THE
CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD IV. NOT ALWAYS TWO TO
MAKE A QUARREL V. COUSINS MEET VI. LIGHTS OUT VII.
FOUL PLAY VIII. BY MEANS OF THE FIRE ESCAPE IX. THE
STORY IN THE "NEWS" X. KIRBY ASKS A DIRECT QUESTION
XI. THE CORONER'S INQUEST XII. "THAT'S THE MAN" XIII.
"ALWAYS, PHYLLIS" XIV. A FRIEND IN NEED XV. A GLOVE
AND THE HAND IN IT XVI. THE LADY WITH THE VIOLET
PERFUME XVII. IN DRY VALLEY XVIII. "BURNIN' A HOLE IN
MY POCKET" XIX. A DISCOVERY XX. THE BRASS BED XXI.
JAMES LOSES HIS TEMPER XXII. "ARE YOU WITH ME OR
AGAINST ME?" XXIII. COUSINS DISAGREE XXIV. REVEREND
NICODEMUS RANKIN FORGETS AND REMEMBERS XXV. A
CONFERENCE OF THREE XXVI. CUTTING TRAIL XXVII. THE
DETECTIVE GETS TWO SURPRISES XXVIII. THE FINGER OF
SUSPICION POINTS XXIX. "COME CLEAN, JACK" XXX. KIRBY
MAKES A CALL XXXI. THE MASK OF THE RED BANDANNA
XXXII. JACK TAKES OFF HIS COAT XXXIII. OLSON TELLS A
STORY XXXIV. FROM THE FIRE ESCAPE XXXV. LIKE A THIEF
IN THE NIGHT XXXVI. A RIDE IN A TAXI XXXVII. ON THE
GRILL XXXVIII. A FULL MORNING XXXIX. KIRBY INVITES

HIMSELF TO A RIDE XL. THE MILLS OF THE GODS XLI.
ENTER X XLII. THE NEW WORLD

TANGLED TRAILS
CHAPTER I
NO ALTRUIST
Esther McLean brought the afternoon mail in to Cunningham. She put
it on the desk before him and stood waiting, timidly, afraid to voice her
demand for justice, yet too desperately anxious to leave with it
unspoken.
He leaned back in his swivel chair, his cold eyes challenging her.
"Well," he barked harshly.
She was a young, soft creature, very pretty in a kittenish fashion, both
sensuous and helpless. It was an easy guess that unless fortune stood
her friend she was a predestined victim to the world's selfish love of
pleasure, and fortune, with a cynical smile, had stood aside and let her
go her way.
"I . . . I . . ." A wave of color flooded her face. She twisted a rag of a
handkerchief into a hard wadded knot.
"Spit it out," he ordered curtly.
"I've got to do something . . . soon. Won't you--won't you--?" There
was a wail of despair in the unfinished sentence.
James Cunningham was a grim, gray pirate, as malleable as cast iron
and as soft. He was a large, big-boned man, aggressive, dominant, the
kind that takes the world by the throat and shakes success from it. The
contour of his hook-nosed face had something rapacious written on it.
"No. Not till I get good and ready. I've told you I'd look out for you if

you'd keep still. Don't come whining at me. I won't have it."
"But--"
Already he was ripping letters open and glancing over them. Tears
brimmed the brown eyes of the girl. She bit her lower lip, choked back
a sob, and turned hopelessly away. Her misfortune lay at her own door.
She knew that. But-- The woe in her heart was that the man she had
loved was leaving her to face alone a night as bleak as death.
Cunningham had always led a life of intelligent selfishness. He had
usually got what he wanted because he was strong enough to take it. No
scrupulous nicety of means had ever deterred him. Nor ever would. He
played his own hand with a cynical disregard of the rights of others. It
was this that had made him what he was, a man who bulked large in the
sight of the city and state. Long ago he had made up his mind that
altruism was weakness.
He went through his mail with a swift, trained eye. One of the letters he
laid aside and glanced at a second time. It brought a grim, hard smile to
his lips. A paragraph read:
There's no water in