Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 60

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Jim Chaffee left Bannock City by stage early on a wind-bitten morning, caught a train across the range, and dropped off sometime after noon at the yellow station house that served the Roaring Horse country. The Roaring Horse stage was waiting; Chaffee crossed the tracks, sharply watching the driver. Sooner or later the news of his return would be abroad; he couldn't help this turn of events, but he did hope that the tidings might be delayed until he was well into the desert. But as soon as he recognized the driver he knew that little time would be lost in transmitting the fact that he had set foot upon debatable soil again—and was again fair game. That driver happened to be Jeff Ganashayd, one of those fellows who was willing to be all things to all men. There was no malice in Ganashayd; only, he had a tongue never still. And Jim Chaffee's presence, an item of importance to everybody in the county, would certainly put that tongue in motion.

Chaffee saluted the man cheerfully and climbed to the top seat. "Only passenger, Jeff. Let's go."

"Sa-ay," drawled Ganashayd, eyes growing wider, "ain't yuh kinder unexpected?" He dropped into his seat and set the team on the homeward trial. "Gosh, Jim, yuh mean to go right into town?"

Chaffee brushed that aside, having questions of his own. "What's news, Jeff?"

"Nothin' much an' a little bit of everythin'," opined the stage driver. "Course, I ain't a man to do much talkin'. Minds my own business and says little. The country is full of homesteaders. Yeah. Never saw the beat. Swarmin' in like flies. Mostly folks from the adjoinin' counties. Mack Moran was plugged but is doin' well. Miz Satterlee left the district. Injun Eagle went back to the blanket an' sure give folks a chill. But, sa-ay, the biggest item was a story printed in the paper, tellin' how they wasn't goin' to be no dam and Mr. Woolfridge knew they wasn't all the time. New settlers seems sorter riled about that. Some talk of bringin' somebody to book about, it. But, pshaw, a man'll hear lots uh things foolish. That Thatcher woman drifted back. Heard a story about her—"

"Back up," said Chaffee with a flat emphasis on the words. "Turn off on this side road, Jeff. I'm goin' up to Cherry's horse ranch."

"I got to make time," objected Ganashayd.

"Only a couple of miles out of your way," was Chaffee's calm reply. "What's two miles to an empty stage with an empty driver on it? It'll give you that much more time to cook up a good stiff yarn about me. Anyhow, I ain't walkin'."

"I know when to mind my own business," stated Ganashayd earnestly. "Won't say a word to nobody."

"Bear off," insisted Chaffee. So the stage took the side road and closed upon a clutter of ranch houses topped by a windmill tower. Presently they were at the end of the road with a pack of dogs sounding at them. Chaffee swung to the ground. "Pay you next time, Jeff. Tell everybody you saw me. Tell em I'm poor in the flanks and I limp on one leg. Tell 'em I look humble and act humble and feel humble—but that I'm here and I'll see everybody soon. So long, Jeff."

Jeff Ganashayd went back the side road much faster than he went up. He took the curves on two wheels and laid his long whip across the horses' hips. His glance, ever and anon, raked the reaches around Cherry's horse ranch, and when a httle later he saw a horseman questing northward from the ranch his eyes turned as bright as those of some magpie who had sighted a shoestring. "Sa-ay, won't this knock somebody bow-legged? Jupiter, what a story for Roarin' Horse! I am't told nothin half as good since I saw the man which struck Billy Patterson. Go 'long!" The whip popped and across the desert and down the street of Roaring Horse he charged, brake blocks snarling against the wheels. And since he was a born gossip with the love of an audience he bided his time till the customary crowd had collected. Luis Locklear was just strolling up when Jeff Ganashayd launched a liquid parabola of tobacco juice across the wagon wheel and announced in a sounding voice:

"Chaffee got off the train this noon, an' I drove him to Cherry's horse ranch He's headin' north. Saw him ride thataway later. He looked mean; he looked awful hard. Never saw a man with so much sudden death in his orbs. Toted two guns an' a rifle. Extra bandolier uh cattridges slung arount his shoulders. And he said—says he to me in a growlin', nasty way: 'Ganashayd, doom is a-comin' down on the haids o' sev'ral gents in Roarin' Horse. I'm out to kill.' S'help me, them was his literal words."

After that Ganashayd enlarged the topic. But Luis Locklear passed quietly on and into the land office. A little later there was a rider going out of Roaring Horse with quirt flailing down, bound toward the lava stretch where Theodorik Perrine's gang was quartered.

The Cherrys were old friends of Jim Chaffee's. From them he borrowed horse, gear, and a hasty snack, and headed northward with the sun falling down the sky on his left. The stage was a- whirling rapidly beyond sight, and he knew hardly another hour could pass without the tocsin being sounded. He hated to admit it, yet those ten days in Bannock City had been the same as a visit to heaven. He had worried, but he had been physically idle. And after the slogging labor of the past years, as well as the hard punishment of those few days of fighting, it had seemed to him almost a sinful pleasure to lie dormant while the daylight hours went around.

He was again full of vital energy. The country of his choice lay stretched into the misty horizons, swelling like the surface of a placid ocean. It was sage and sand, arroyo and butte—the same as the land to the other side of the range; yet somehow it was a fairer land here and he felt freer in it. The peaks were heavy with snow, the bench was lightly overlaid; down in the flat country no snow had so far touched the earth, though the air was shot with the warning of it and the sun was dim above unusual clouds. So he traveled leisurely, timing himself against the hour when he was to meet the ex-Stirrup S men at the old quarters. And around twilight of this short day, he surmounted a knoll to confront the familiar, heart-quickening sight of his old homestead. The cottonwoods marched against the deepening blue, the creek bank was heavy with shadows. And the house sat serenely in the shelter.

But only for a moment did he feel the pleasure of revisiting. The next moment he was wistfully sad and regretful. A light glimmered out of the cabin windows. Somebody else enjoyed the comfort of the structure he had created with so much sweat and pride and hope for the future. He reined in only a moment, absorbing the picture. Then he spoke quietly to the horse and circled away for Stirrup S.

"Things change," he murmured. "That's life, I reckon. And if a man doesn't move with the times the ground is cut from under his feet. I must be getting old. Seems like I'm always harpin' back to what used to be. Well, it's hard for a fellow to bury a piece of his life in one spot of the earth and then go away and forget. I'll never find another place like it."

Twilight was absorbed into darkness. A sickle moon cast a blurred reflection above the clouds, the stars were hidden. And in the desert quietness he became aware that someone followed him. Nothing of sight nor of sound came forward to tell him this; it was rather one of those impalpable warnings carrying across the air to vaguely impinge on his nerves. Some men are given the faculty of feeling such things; some men arc not. It is almost an instinct and comparable to that sense in birds which turns them south and north on the approach of the seasons. Jim Chaffee had felt such warnings before. When he obeyed them he profited; when he tried to reason out the strange fact of their existence he invariably went wrong. He traveled onward, making certain of the warning.

Presently he shifted his course to right angles and fell into a gully, waiting. "Four-five hours would give them time to get on my trail," he said to himself. "But how would they know where to look? Maybe they figure an old dog always strays home." No signals rose behind. Far off a coyote, lifted its bark and wail to the profound mystery of the universe. Somewhere was a like reply, and that was all. Chaffee tarried fifteen minutes and then went on. Perhaps his senses played him false. Both uncertain and restless he pressed the horse to a faster pace. He passed a solitary pine and a hedgelike clump of juniper bushes; he struck a beaten trail and then the outline of all that had been the Stirrup S home ranch lay dark and obscure in front of him.

He stopped, oppressed by the tenancy of those chilly shadows. Once Stirrup S had been crowded with life; a light had glimmered from the big house; melody and warmth had dwelt in the crew's quarters. Fine men had walked the yard, proud of all that Stirrup S meant—its vast range; its wide-flung herds. A domain it had been, a little empire apart, a haven and refuge, a sturdy piece of the historic West. Now it was but a cheerless relic of brave dreams gone to defeat. Out beyond in the still heavier shadows Dad Satterlee lay asleep. Miz Satterlee was gone, the crew scattered; never again would the corrals echo to the same shouts, the same epithets, the same ribald jeering. This had been his home; and the thought of it renewed the feeling of homesickness in him.

"Times change. I guess we ain't got any right to stick to the old, familiar things. But it goes hard—it goes hard."

His old-time partners were not on hand, otherwise a light would be burning. Dropping from the saddle, he led the horse nearer a corral and left it. Walking alongside the bars of the corral he was more distinctly assailed by the sensation that others were abroad in the night, behind him or about him. The farther he issued into the yard the more strongly did the belief become until at last he halted, drawing his muscles together and dropping his gun arm. He stood between the crew's quarters and the big house, facing westward toward the gaunt outline of the barn. He had not been aware of a wind before, yet there appeared to be a rustling and a whispering and a soft abrasion of sounds running here and there. It seemed to him to grow louder around the crew's quarters; it seemed to him the shadows were shifting. He stepped side-wise, closing upon the porch of the big house, at the same time watching the other direction with flaring eyes.

Was it the Stirrup S bunch, waiting for him and yet wishing to keep under cover for fear of the forces leagued against them? Supposing his friends were over there? They could hear him. Why didn't somebody challenge? Did they figure it was his play and not theirs? Well, maybe it was. He debated, more and more sure of company in the yard. At that point he heard the first definite breaking of silence—a boot dragging along a board, a subdued murmur. All this by the crew's quarters. Nothing came from the big house. He got to the steps of the house porch and made his decision; he drew a breath, lifted his gun from the holster, and sent a challenge running softly across the yard.

"Who's that?"

It was as if he had opened the door to bedlam. A staccato roar rent the silence and the blackness. Flames mushroomed at widely divergent points; bullets smashed along the porch and spat at his very feet. And above this he heard the booming sledging voice of Theodorik Perrine summoning up the attack.

"Now we got him! Snap into it! Lay lead over there—lay lead over there!"

He leaped up the steps and over the porch. The door was closed; he flung it open, slid inside, and slammed it shut. The next moment he had jumped away and down to a window. The door seemed about to be beaten off its hinges by the impact of bullets. They came onward, Perrine's mighty, sounding wrath like the break of rollers on a beach. They were up to the porch; from the window he saw their shadowed forms weaving this way and that way, and he opened on them with a brace of shots that scattered the gang and flattened them down against the porch boards. But he knew the diversion was only for the moment. He could not stop them; he could not keep them from coming through—either by the front or the back. What he could do was play a game of hide- away. Another shot humbled them for a few moments.

In those moments he slipped up the stairs. On the landing he heard the front door give and go down. Only Perrine's strength could have smashed it so suddenly and completely; and they were inside, roving here and there with a singular recklessness until the giant that led them boomed again.

"You go outside, Clipper! Watch! Back door—for the love o' God, watch that back door!"

"Listen," grumbled one of the men, "this ain't no way to get him. Damn' place is full uh holes an' shadders. Le's go outside and string around it. Burn the joint. Can't miss him then."

"I want to get my hands on him," muttered Perrine.

"Use yore head—"

"Shut up! This is my party!"

The giant had gone mad. Chaffee's groping arm touched a table in the hallway. There was a piece of Indian pottery on it. Seizing the jar, he bent over the banister and dropped it down. The smash of it on the lower floor, woke their restless guns. Smoke swirled upward; hot profanity beat along the darkness. They were falling flat, overturning chairs and tables for protection.

"That corner—"

"Chaffee—yore dead now!"

Chaffee went on down the upper hall a-tiptoe. A window opened to the roof of the back porch, and he hoped to let himself down quietly and circle around to his horse. But in treading the hall his boots struck a loose board. It sent out a sharp protest, and as he reached the window there seemed to be a general break-up of Perrine's party. The renegades broke in all directions, boots drumming the lower flooring, sounding out of the doors. He debated, trying to catch the meaning of the move. Then he heard a brace of shots cracking from the general direction of the barn. Hard after, Perrine went a-bellowing across the yard.

"He's wiggled clear! He's monkeyin' with our hosses! Clipper—Clipper, where in the name o' Judas are yuh? Nev' mind upstairs—that's just a sound!" The rest of his vast fury rolled out unprintable and blasphemous. Chaffee shook his head, not understanding. He drew the catches of the window and raised it, noise lost in the general racket going on below. He shoved himself through and worked to the edge of the porch roof. Back here was quietness; out front the guns were playing. Looking to the ground from this elevation was like staring into some black pool of water.

"Maybe it's another neat little device of Mr. Perrine's," he said to himself. "He's as crazy as a louse on a hot brick. But I can't be speculatin' all night. Here's a break. Better take it. Now, if they's a man waitin'—"

He dropped and hit the ground on all fours, feeling the impact stabbing his still insecure ankle. So far so good. No gun met him, nobody came catapulting out of the surrounding shadows. He rose and galloped away from the house, hearing the thundering voice of Theodorik Perrine rise and fall from one raging epithet to another. He skirted a shed, reached the corral, and hurried around it. His horse still stood, though restless and circling the reins. Chaffee never gave it a thought; he sprang up and turned the pony. A voice came sibilantly from somewhere.

"Jim."

"Who's that?"

"Mark—Mark Eagle." Horse and rider closed in, came beside Jim. The Indian's arm dropped on Chaffee's shoulder. "I am your friend."

"How in the name of—"

"Let's ride out first."

The pair spurred off, the drum of their ponies bringing Perrine's gang down the yard on the jump. But presently they had become only murmuring figures in the distance. The reports of the shooting were damped. "Better swing," said Chaffee. "They'll be on our heels pretty quick."

"No," said Mark Eagle with the quiet, expressionless manner so characteristic of him. "I drove their horses away before I fired those shots. They will hunt around some while, my friend."

"Now, listen Mark, how did you bust into this?"

"This afternoon I saw you going north. I was hidden in a gully. I have led a solitary life recently, Jim. I have come near nobody. But I saw you and I followed. I know many things—too many things! But I was by the corral when Perrine's outfit opened up. The rest was not hard. I am glad to see you back."

"That goes double," muttered Chaffee. "I owe you somethin', Mark. Blamed if I don't. Well—let's swing around anyhow. I sent word ahead for the old outfit to meet me back there. It's plain they won't. So we'll try Linderman's, which is the alternate rendezvous."

"They will not be at Linderman's," said Mark Eagle, never altering his tones a whit. "They were at Melotte's a little before sundown—part of them. Others are scattered."

"How do you know, Mark? You were on my trail around then."

"I saw Melotte's from a distance at four o'clock. He is building a barn and they are working on it. I saw them."

"They'd still have time to reach Linderman's," insisted Chaffee. "And they wouldn't turn me down. I told Red Corcoran in Bannock City ten days ago to round 'em up."

"Red Corcoran," said Mark softly, "never reached Melotte's, Jim. He is dead—killed eight days ago—up in the bench behind Cherry's horse ranch. I found him, with a bullet in his heart. And I saw a big boot track near by, as big a boot track as you found back on the livery stable."

"Dead!" cried Chaffee, struck clean through by the news. "Red? Why—Perrine killed him?" He sat a long time, staring up to the hidden stars, sad and outraged and remembering the sturdy, reckless courage of the man. "Another fine friend gone. Why was it Jeff Ganashayd didn't mention that when I saw him to-day?"

"Nobody knows but me—and Perrine. It is way back on the bench, Jim. The story was on the ground. Corcoran coming from the low pass—coming from you. And Perrine ran into him. Wasn't it a good chance for Perrine to settle a grudge? I buried Red."

Chaffee's hand rose and fell. "Mark, I wish you'd help me. I wish you'd round up the boys and have them meet me somewhere."

"I will. And the time has come to tell you something else. Light a match."

Chaffee found and struck a match. The light flared on Mark Eagle's rounding coppered cheeks and revealed the smeared paint, revealed as well the blanket enfolding him, the fringed leggings. The Indian drew the blanket open and displayed his bare chest. Then the light went out and Mark Eagle was speaking with a rising sonorousness. "I was raised an Indian till I went to government school. A white man's ways looked good to me. I learned them; I followed them. To be like a white man was to be honorable, to keep a straight tongue. I have kept a straight tongue. But, my friend, it is hard to go against a man's own blood. My heart kept running out even while I turned the pages of the ledgers. And one day after you were gone, when I saw how evil a time had come to Roaring Horse, I went back to the blanket. And now what have I found? That I am no longer an Indian. The blanket is not for me. My heart is divided—and always will be. It is bad. Never should I have left my father for a government school."

He paused a moment, expelling a great breath; and Chaffee thought the Indian was staring at the sky. "I have kept a straight tongue. I am proud of it. But I know things that you should know. And now I will tell. I was back of the stable that night—in the darkness, thinking of my father. Men came there, each one apart. I saw them, but they didn't see me. The gambler came, breathing very hard. Perrine came, swearing to himself—but these men did not kill Satterlee even if they meant to do it. Another man came, hardly breathing at all. And he was there long before any of the others, no more than five yards away from me. He killed Satterlee, Jim. And his heart was very cold and hard when he did it. He had thought about it a long time, or he would have breathed harder. I know these things because that is my blood. I have said nothing all this while. It is not a white man's way to keep a straight tongue—and a still one. Maybe. But it is an Indian's way to help his friends. Is that not a better thing? Satterlee was my friend. So are you. I tell you Woolfridge killed Satterlee."

After that, long moments of silence intervened. Mark Eagle had wrapped himself in his blanket again, stolid, patient. Chaffee drew a breath. The match snapped between his fingers. Out of the distant wastes rose the ancient chant of the coyote, bearing in it the impress of primeval desolation and eternal mystery; and far, far away that cry was taken up and reechoed, indescribably mournful. Chaffee spoke quietly.

"You go round up the boys, Mark. Tell them to meet me to- morrow night behind the rodeo stands."

He might have gone by the way of Melotte's, for his destination was to town. But sure as he was of his partners' discretion he was not at all sure of Melotte's crew. And, though his presence was known by now, he could at least keep people from guessing where he meant to strike. Mark Eagle could do the chore safely, whispering his summons to one of the boys. They would say nothing. Nor did he want to meet Perrine again to-night; and Perrine would be scouring the main road. So he took a circuitous route and arrived back of Roaring Horse near twelve. There was an abandoned barn near the rodeo field; he left his horse in it, shut the door, and advanced along the deep darkness of the street.

The land office was closed. He saw that first because it was to the land office his attention immediately traveled. Looking to the Gusher he studied the corner windows on the second floor—Woolfridge's quarters. And they, too, were dark. Either the man was abed or out on his ranch. It made no particular difference to Chaffee; he was not ready to meet Woolfridge to-night. At the same time he noted certain changes about Roaring Horse. It was a fatter-looking place. A number of tents were up in the empty lots between rodeo field and the town proper. In the dwelling houses so usually tenantless he saw lights winking. The stores were open beyond their accustomed hour, and the saloons seemed to be doing considerable business. Strange faces appeared along the illuminated window fronts—appeared and slid into the shadows. He saw Locklear come out of the Gusher and sink to rest in a shrouded corner of the porch. And, still watching, it became evident to him that men were quietly patrolling the town. Quietly idling at intervals by the hotel porch. Passing word with the sheriff.

"Expectin' me, I guess," he murmured, transferring his glance to that room above Tilton's store where Doc Fancher kept office. Naturally the panes glowed with the reflection of Fancher's lamp. Fancher never seemed to go to bed. He debated, half of a mind to detour and visit the county coroner. Fancher was a stout friend and absolutely safe. But supposing Fancher was being watched with the knowledge he, Jim Chaffee, might make just such a visit? It was more or less known, the close regard these two had for each other. Of a sudden Chaffee chuckled softly. "Won't do that—but I'll do the next best thing."

He retreated, circled the town at a safe distance, and gained the back of Tilton's dry-goods store. This was another of those buildings with a flat roof and a triangular false front rising before the roof. Chaffee chinned himself up a porch post, set foot on a window ledge, hooked his fingers across the cornice, and teetered out in space. He achieved the tar-papered roof and went tiptoeing across it. He was directly above Fancher's office; in going to the street side of the building he passed the rectangular box that capped the roof trap door. If he opened that he could look down on Fancher's very head. But he resisted the temptation and curled himself in a corner, shielded by the false front and the yard high coping that ran around the other sides. It was very cold, but he alternately dozed and woke till full daylight.

There were small ports cut through the coping and false front to let water flow off the roof top. Flat on his stomach and one cheek to the tar paper he could command a partial view westward on the street through these. And as the morning passed a great many citizens crossed his vision. Locklear, looking more taciturn and unmanageable than ever; three of the hired gunmen walking abreast—at which Chaffee murmured some mild oath; Callahan the saloon keeper, jowls looking very fat and unhealthy by day. These and others were familiar faces. But he saw a great many new faces—rawboned and sunburned men who slouched idly here and there; who fell into pairs and by degrees collected into a crowd. Then the crowd would split and move away. But it was a singular thing that this drawing together occurred many times, and each time seemed to be larger and to hold longer. Men gestured with short jabs of elbows and arms; sometimes the parley appeared to grow heated.

Beyond noon, Perrine and his gang rode into town. Chaffee's interest sharpened. Even from the roofs eminence he made out the giant's sleepy eyes and sand-grimed cheeks. Perrine had been riding most of the night, so much was plain; and the burly one's temper lay heavily on the scowling brow, The whole party dropped reins by Callahan's saloon and went in. There happened to be a group of homesteaders—Chaffee had decided they were such—clustered by the livery stable at the time, and Chaffee noted how these men turned to watch Perrine's crew. That united scrutiny wasn't the ordinary type of interest. Something more was in the air. Then Doc Fancher marched into sight, his bowed legs stretching toward the courthouse. Immediately after, Chaffee became aware that he himself was being sought. Fancher had hardly disappeared beyond Callahan's when there was a creaking of boards below and the squealing of Fancher's office door. The rumble of talk sifted through the thin roof. They were moving about.

He felt the insecurity of his own position. It might very soon occur to them that it was but a step and a jump through the trapdoor. Turning over, he rose and with infinite care walked to the center of the roof. Even as he settled himself prone across the trapdoor he heard a chair being dragged along the office floor. Fancher's desk groaned. A man stood on it, fingers brushing the under side of the trapdoor head near enough to render audible what he said.

"—Look anyhow. Better hurry. Fancher's apt to come back any minute."

The trapdoor moved slightly, pressure coming against Chaffee's stomach.

"Nailed down. Couldn't be up there. Let's skin out."

The other seemed to be protesting; the near fellow's answer was impatient. "What would he be climbin' up from outside for? Lots of better places to hide. Let's skin away before that wildcat Fancher gets back. Me, I don't hone—"

They left. Chaffee waited a long time to make sure. In fact he held down the trapdoor the best part of an hour, hearing the traffic of the street grow heavier. It sounded as if a great many men were riding into Roaring Horse. Leaving the door he crawled to a port and studied the street. More homesteaders were assembling in groups. He also noticed Locklear, the three hired gunmen and Perrine's crew posted indolently here and yonder. Woolfridge appeared from the direction of the courthouse and walked rapidly across Chaffee's line of vision, looking neither to right nor left. The afternoon slid along, the sun's rim tipped toward the western hills, blurred by intervening clouds. Darkness threatened to arrive prematurely. And Fancher was back in his office, swearing to himself in full, irascible accents. Chaffee, cramped and cold and hungry, felt that the time for patience was at an end. He crawled to the trapdoor, listened a moment, and struck it sharply by way of warning. Fancher challenged: "Who in the name of—" and stopped. Chaffee dragged the door half away and looked down. Fancher's face was wrinkled in anger, but that shifted to concern when he found who was above him. Chaffee dropped to the desk, dragging the door back into place.

"So you was the one who moved my furniture—"

"Nope. Couple of gents investigatin' while you were gone. I heard 'em. They tried the trap but I spraddled it, belly flat."

"They done it before. Boy, I'm certainly glad to see you back and alive. But it ain't any place for a fellow with a price tag on his jeans. You're sittin' on a crater. Whoever moves first starts somethin'. But if said fellow don't move first he's apt to be blown to perdition. Jim, unless I'm as crazy as a loon that street is goin' to run red before long."

"Who's so sore as all that?"

Fancher was genuinely disturbed. He was nervous; the mark of worry lay in his eyes. He crossed to the desk and pulled up a copy of the county weekly, indicating a story spread over the center of the front sheet and surrounded by the black border of reversed column rules. "Read that."

It was the story Gay Thatcher had brought from the governor. No attempt had been made to stretch it out or to dress it up. The first paragraph began it and the second paragraph ended it, but these two paragraphs linked together made the story stark and bitter:

This newspaper, along with several other newspapers in the territory, received from the Roaring Horse Irrigation and Reclamation Corporation copy for an advertisement to be published in our columns. The substance of the advertisement, as readers will recall, was to invite settlers into this country to buy land on the implied promise that a dam was to be built. We received the copy for this advertisement on the eighteenth of November. Remember that date.

We have since been informed by the governor of the territory of a letter written to him—and printed below—by the president of the Power Company in which that official says the Roaring Horse Irrigation and Reclamation Corporation was notified as early as the fifteenth of November that no dam was to be built. Compare that date with the one above.

Chaffee dropped the paper, turning his head from side to side. It both surprised him and confirmed a doubt. The doubt was of Woolfridge's honesty, but the surprise came of having to believe that Woolfridge would ever expose himself to such a backslap. "Doc, this is an awful strong statement. What it deliberately says is that Woolfridge knew there wasn't going to be any dam two days or three days before he sent out the ad."

"Philips has run a newspaper all his life," countered Fancher. "And he knows what's libel and what ain't. He ain't sayin' what you claim he says. Not in so many words. He's puttin' two facts together and lettin' folks do their own guessin'. And he got them facts straight or he wouldn't of printed 'em. When the governor steps into this mess you can bet your sweet life something's rotten."

"I don't see it," confessed Chaffee. "Woolfridge is slick. He's smart. He's wealthy and he's educated."

"An' built up a fine scheme," said Doc Fancher. "A get-rich- quick scheme. But somewhere along the line he left a gate open. Left it open an' behind him, never thinkin' about it. The slick and the smart and the wealthy and the educated dudes in this world do them tricks just as often as you and me. And what's to come of it? What's going to happen in Roaring Horse? Jim, it scares me."

"You're clear," observed Chaffee. "Why worry?"

But Fancher went right on as if he hadn't heard. "This come out four-five days ago. It's traveled like the stink of a stockyard on a windy day. Everybody knows it; everybody's been talkin' about it. It's sorter snowballed up. At first it sorter seemed to miss fire. A homesteader asked Woolfridge about it. Woolfridge laughed in the man's face. Yeah. And what he said was that plenty of people would try to throw a monkey wrench in his business. Get the idea—persecution, jealousy, plain meanness. Uhuh. It seemed to satisfy these birds for a while. I give the man credit for cold, cast-iron, double-riveted nerve. But pretty soon folks got together. Talked about it, figgered it out. It's been growin' stronger every day. They was around fifteen homesteaders here when the news broke. Thirty-forty more came since—all from the adjoinin' counties. I've watched 'em gather from the window here. And I tell you the look that's settlin' in their faces makes me cold."

Chaffee was going around the edges of this business, testing it for himself. "Woolfridge could say that the power company was only denying the story about the dam because of policy. That they didn't want to commit themselves until work was actually started."

"Which he later did say," answered Fancher. "But how does that excuse stack up against the fact that the power company wrote to the governor and the governor made it his personal business to have that letter printed? Folks have been doin' some heavy thinkin'. The governor ain't goin' to mix up with the power company if it's only a bluff. Folks have decided that much. All right. And they've been lookin' back over Woolfridge's record hereabouts. Satterlee dyin' sudden. Stirrup S being froze out. Your own case. Each of them things didn't look like so much at the particular time. Put 'em all together and they seem mighty funny. It leaves a bad taste. The homesteaders are out money. They're in a state of mind. The old-timers around here recollected all the hell raisin' that went on. And they're a long ways from peaceable. It only needs one match to light up the bonfire. From what I been hearin' this afternoon I think the match is lit."

"What's that?"

"You," was Fancher's succinct answer.

"Me?" demanded Chaffee. "Shucks, those homesteaders don't know me. Never saw me."

"Yeah, but they've been hearin' a lot about you recent. That's another item to build up a feelin' against Woolfridge. Well, they've heard you're back. A mob is funny. Anythin's apt to send it on a stampede. Woolfridge has put up a bold face. He had the situation under his hand. He's powerful. But here you are back again and that takes the play out of his control. The crowd feels the change. That's all it needs."

"Here," protested Chaffee, "I'm not going to lead any lynch party."

"Don't you try to stop none, either," Fancher warned him. "Men ain't reasonable at a time like that. Your best friend is just apt to spit in your face and knock you down."

"Which I know blamed well," agreed Chaffee, remembering the time Stirrup S was set to hang the gambler Clyde. Dusk was coming unannounced through the window. Chaffee was reminded that he had set himself a chore. "I'm goin' out a minute, Doc. Stay till I come back, will you?"

"Now listen—" began Fancher. But Chaffee shook his head, opening the door and pulling it behind him. He went down the stairway. The walk was deserted at that particular point and he swung himself into the adjoining alley and ran along to the back end of the buildings. The Gusher was beginning to show lamplight, the kitchen door stood open and a flunkey leaned in the aperture smoking a cigarette. Chaffee knew that flunkey. He also knew the Gusher cook. So he walked on and confronted the flunkey; the latter snapped his cigarette through the air, muttering: "Great guns, where you come from?"

"Who's in the kitchen, Joe?"

"Bill"—who was the cook—"and a coupla girls."

"Get the girls out of there a minute."

The flunkey disappeared. There was a short interval. He heard the flunkey say: "All right. Clear," and he slid into the kitchen quickly. The flunkey had his back to the swinging door leading into the dining room. He was grinning and seemed excited. So did the cook who winked at Chaffee. Chaffee dropped a word and turned aside to the small stairway leading up from the kitchen to that part of the second story housing the help. He went down a hall, opened another door, and arrived at the main hall. A light broke through a transom at occasional rooms, and there was a murmur of talk. He walked casually toward the hall's far end. In front of room 101 he paused. A light came over this transom, too, but he heard no conversation. Testing the knob carefully, he dropped his free hand to his gun and pushed the door before him.

Woolfridge stood by a window, looking down to the street. He turned at the sound of Chaffee's entrance, and when he saw who confronted him his face seemed in the lamp's glow to become harsh and triangular. But he said nothing, nor did he show surprise; he had trained himself too long to give way now. Instead, his arms moved together, hand gripping wrist, and he stood with the preciseness of carriage that always marked him; stood like this and somberly studied the man he had watched and harried so persistently in the last two weeks.

"Sit down," said Chaffee as if this was an everyday occurrence. "Hustle it."

Woolfridge moved to a chair and settled.

"Pull off a boot—either one."

He saw the blood spilling up into Woolfridge's neck; he saw the compression of lips and the queer, uncanny shifting of character. At once there was a different look on Woolfridge's face—the emergence of emotions long hidden, carefully suppressed. Emotions that had driven him through the course of the past few months and caused him to become in the end relentless, unscrupulous, and astonishingly reckless.

"Hurry the boot," suggested Chaffee. "Throw it over here."

Still wordless, Woolfridge obeyed. Chaffee reached for the boot and backed to the door. "That," said he with an admirable sang-froid, "will be all for a little while. If I want you later I'll drop around. If you ain't here"—and the leisurely quality of his words was broken by the snap and ring of rising anger—"I'll come and find you."

Woolfridge shrugged his shoulders and spoke for the first time. "That," said he, "will be interesting."

Chaffee let himself out of the door. A moment later he was squirming down the stairway; he crossed the kitchen, careless of the waitress watching, ran rapidly back to the alley beside Tilton's, and with one scant moment's hesitation to inspect the street ducked up to Fancher's office. Fancher had lighted the lamp and drawn the front window blind. Chaffee was somehow bothered by the drawn lines on the man's face and the sadness in the eyes. He threw the boot on Fancher's table.

"Where are those models?"

Fancher moved back to a corner of the room. "Them blamed models have been awful strong bait. Somebody's suspected I got 'em. They've rummaged my premises two-three times lately while I was gone. I figured something like that would happen, so I moved 'em out of the cabinet." Two pair of high boots stood against the wall, each boot stuffed with a heavy stock. Fancher pulled out the socks and turned the boots over and picked out that model with the broad arch and flat heel; he laid it on the table and placed Woolfridge's boot against it, Fancher looked at the mating just once and raised his head.

"It's a fit. I always figured that flat heel must've come from a cavalry style boot. There she is. But the job ain't done yet. We still got this splay-toed model we ain't identified."

"Mark Eagle's—he told me he was there that night. Nobody but an Indian has got a fan-shaped foot. It's complete."

"So," murmured Fancher. "What of it?"

"Mark told me something else," drawled Chaffee. Excitement piled up in him, his eyes were flickering, the lean cheeks compressing. "He was back there. He saw three men come around the stable. One was the gambler, who never fired a shot. Second was Theodorik Perrine, and he didn't fire a shot. The third man killed Satterlee. The name of that man is Woolfridge."

Fancher's head bobbed up and down. "I've had the idea in my head a long time. But supposin' you're talkin' to a jury. How strong is Mark Eagle's testimony? Why couldn't he have fired that shot? I'm not accusin' him—I'm lookin' at it from the jury's point of view."

"What reason would he have?" countered Chaffee. "He was Satterlee's known friend. That's well established. Point two—Satterlee was killed with a .44 slug. I know Mark Eagle's guns. Seen 'em lots of times and so have you. He never carries anything but a .45 and a Krag rifle. Point three—his boot prints never came near the mouth of the stable's back door, nor anywheres within a direct line of fire. Neither did the gambler's, nor Perrine's. But the marks of Woolfridge's boots crept along the edge of the stable wall and were sunk deep into the ground right at the edge of the door—as if he'd crouched and set the weight of his body on his heels. Point four—Woolfridge had a good reason for killing Satterlee. He'd been dogging the old man for a long time to sell Stirrup S. Had to have the ranch for his plans. Old man wouldn't sell. So Woolfridge took the only way out. It's clear to me. It will be clear enough to a jury."

"If it gets to a jury," muttered Fancher. "I don't understand why Woolfridge would do it himself when he had so many hired gunmen."

"One time," said Chaffee, "I overheard him say that if a thing was to be well done it had to be done personally. Another mistake. Well, Fancher, I've been hustled around the country a long time. It's my turn—"

"What in God's name is going on below?" interrupted Fancher. He ran to the window and lifted the blind. The street was filling with voices and down it came a body of horsemen yelling into the dark sky. A gun exploded, rattling loose sashes. Fancher turned. "Stirrup S crew."

"I told them to meet me behind the rodeo grounds," muttered Chaffee. "They're awful public about it."

"They know—they feel the change," said Fancher, looking old and weary. "It's in the air. Jim, a mob is a terrible thing—a terrible thing."

"My turn has come," replied Chaffee. All at once the last of the tolerance and easy-going air left him. The yellow lamplight beat against his bronze cheeks, bringing into prominence the sharp angles of mouth and chin and eyelids. To-night the impulses of the killer were leaping in his veins, and Doc Fancher, seeing this, sighed and let his shoulders sag a little.

"Jim, don't get reckless. They're under the gun, but they want you pretty bad. And it only takes one shot."

"They've tried too many times," said Chaffee. "It's not in the cards now. What have they done? They've ruined a pleasant country—left scars all over it! Chased fine people away just to make way for an unscrupulous project. Shot folks down—robbed them! It's my turn now. I'm going out there and get the boys together. Woolfridge goes to jail, and if Locklear makes a move against me he goes behind the bars, too. Those imported gun artists are ridin' a long way out before daylight. And I'm goin' to see Mister Theodorik Perrine and settle an argument with him. It's a clean sweep, Fancher. Roaring Horse needs it awful bad."

"It only takes one shot," Fancher reminded him again.

Chaffee was at the door. For just a moment a tight grin flashed across his eyes. "Doc, if you'd been with me the last three weeks I think you'd figger I'm blamed near proof against disaster. Well, here's the start of somethin'."

He went down the stairs and stepped into the street, shadowed and unobserved. Over at the livery stable was a mass of men crowding together and moving with a strange restlessness. Somebody was up on a box in the very center of the crowd, talking rapidly and angrily. The Stirrup S boys were at the other end of the street; evidently they had made one trip to the rodeo grounds and, finding nothing, were bent back to sweep Roaring Horse end to end by way of diversion. Down the thoroughfare they galloped, thigh and thigh. Locklear and Perrine, with his men, were assembled on the porch of the Gusher. The imported gunmen were there as well. And, counting heads, Chaffee observed that most of Woolfridge's ranch crew stood idly at hand. The sight of them was cut off by the charging Stirrup S partisans. Chaffee stepped into the street and raised his voice.

"Pull up, you wildcats!"

The riders came to a swirling halt; they saw him. Another gun exploded and his name was sent ringing down between the building walls.

"Chaffee!"

The crowd heard it. The man on the box looked about and reechoed the cry. "Chaffee's back!" and then confusion hit Roaring Horse as a bolt of lightning. The crowd shifted and all its black mass came spilling onward toward Chaffee and the Stirrup S riders. A rumbling roar quivered through the chill night air, a sound sinister and fear inspiring. As hardened as he was, Jim Chaffee felt a spinal thrill. He whispered to the men about him. "Spread out—block the street. That gang will tear Woolfridge and his bunch apart."

Gay Thatcher had stayed in Roaring Horse, not knowing just why she did so. In her mind was the irrevocable decision that when she left this country it was to be forever. Perhaps, therefore, her delay rose from the knowledge that she would never see Roaring Horse again, never ride its swelling leagues again, never again mark the tall and lazy figure of Jim Chaffee coming down the street. All that was memory—to be laid sadly away in her heart along with other memories. So she stayed, very close to her room all the while. She had seen Woolfridge once in the lobby, and he had spoken with a queer and formal politeness. As the days went on and the story appeared in the weekly paper she began to note from her window the gradual forming of small clusters on the street. Homesteaders coming together. It grew to be a more common sight. And to-day she had witnessed the swift rolling up of the tide. She heard Jim Chaffee's name mentioned in the lobby, whereat the color came to her cheeks and her pulse beat the faster. She walked along the street, going as far as the courthouse and back again, impressed by a feeling of currents boiling through the air. She heard Chaffee's name many more times, murmured or sibilantly whispered. It seemed to be a kind of omen or a signal.

She was an observant girl and she was quick to observe how those men attached to Woolfridge ranged back and forward, going into this building, turning around that one, riding out to the desert and galloping back. The activity seemed to grow more pronounced as dusk threatened the world; the watchfulness on their faces deepened. When she returned to the Gusher she saw Locklear posted there with some of his men around him; and the homesteaders formed a thicker and more restless mass over by the stable. It all created a tension that played odd tricks with her nerves. She ate supper, scarcely touching the food, and sat in the lobby; even in that short interval the throaty rumbling of the mob had deepened to a pitch that sent a cold, still fright through her body. Locklear's sullen face seemed set and rather sallow, while his men were quite plainly uneasy. Perrine came in a moment later, eyes flashing strangely as the lamplight touched him. And though the girl felt a strong repulsion at the sight of him—the utter brutish and degrading qualities of the man challenging all her instincts of decency—yet she could not help acknowledging the ruthless, elemental courage he had. The others were crumbling, ready to run; he seemed scornful of the gathering power outside.

There was a short parley between them, talk shuttling back and forth in murmuring spurts. Perrine appeared to be urging some course of action that Locklear and the others disliked. The sheriff began to shake his head, whereat Perrine tilted his massive chin and spoke bluntly that a dull color came back to Locklear's cheek bones. But his only answer was to raise one hand and point outward in the direction of the mob. The girl got up, no longer able to sit so near the center of the gathering storm, and climbed the stairs. On the landing she turned to see Perrine looking up to her with a hard grin.

"You'll git yore money's worth before this sight-seein' trip is over, sister," he rumbled.

She passed along the dark hall and unlocked her door. The lamp still burned on the table as she had left it, and so she went in, a wave of relief coming over her at the knowledge she could shut herself away from the turbulence below. Pushing the door behind her, she heard a sighing sound on the carpet of the hall, the door struck resistance and flew open again. Whirling about she confronted William Wells Woolfridge. And the next moment he was in the room, closing the door and leaning against it.

"Well, my dear lady, have you been enjoying the show?"

He had changed. The smoothness was gone, the scrupulous grooming no longer showed on his clothing, and it appeared very odd to her that he should be wearing a pair of low street shoes instead of the customary boots. These, set against the bottom of his riding breeches, gave his attire a laughable incompleteness. But she was in no humor to laugh, for she knew she faced a dangerous man. There was a suppressed fury about him, an indefinable barbaric glint in his eyes that rose above his normal colorlessness. In his question was a trace of the old suavity, but only a trace.

"Mr. Woolfridge, I have not asked you to enter my room."

"No? This is not a time for ceremony. I have played your game long enough. There is always a time when rules cease to be desirable. I trust you have found the street scene as dramatic and thrilling as the customary act."

"I am not the kind to enjoy tragedy. Please go out."

"Ah. So you perceive tragedy? And perhaps feel this tragedy is a little of your own making?"

She had not thought of that. His question brought a moment's depression. Had she been the instrument by which this fury was loosened? Her clear, sound sense told her she had not been. Long before her part in the tangled affairs of Roaring Horse had been played, this dark night was in the making. Her share had been but to help reveal the inevitable result of another's wrongdoing.

"Mr. Woolfridge, look back on your own trail. Have you come to the point where you must blame others for your own scheming? You told me once of the great things you meant to do. Look out on the street! There is the result. You ought to be on your knees, praying. You are a man of education. You have money. Why should you want to bring starvation to these poor folks? You knew it wasn't right!"

He looked down at her, his face seeming to turn to stone. "You play your part well. Is it not time to drop the pretense that you love those clods out yonder? Dull kine—stupid with their lives, dumb and unthrifty. You say I should be sorry for them. I do not have so soft and civilized a conscience."

"Please go," she asked. "I don't care to argue. No—don't come any closer to me!"

She backed away, hand behind her. At the far side of the room, in a drawer of a desk, was the small pistol she always carried. She felt the need of it now. In the course of the week she had watched carefully for just such an interruption as this, knowing that Woolfridge might at some reckless hour cross the border line that divided the two sides of his dual nature. She had never left her door unlocked and never traveled alone outside the limits of town. Yet with all her watchfulness he had caught her off guard and now, step at a time, advanced as she retreated.

"I wouldn't try to attain melodrama," was Woolfridge's cool warning. "If you are trying to get a weapon stop where you are. I must have a talk with you."

"I'll ask you again to leave my room," said she.

"And don't scream," he went on as if he hadn't heard her. "I am past pretty manners right now."

She halted. Woolfridge nodded his head and likewise stopped. Though he never let his eyes stray from her, he seemed to be listening to the undertone of the mob rising up from the street and dimly sifting down the hall. His shoulders lifted. "Time changes all things. Well, I am not fool enough to play the part of King John. The waves may come. I won't try to stop them. In this world we go from one thing to another. Some people make the mistake of trying to hang on when it is too late. I never do. My dear, you are a beauty!"

"Did you come here to say that?"

He inclined his head. "To tell you that and more. You are worth all any man might offer. You are a beauty. You have a rare intelligence, and I love the combination. I did not, of course, bargain on your past. But, after all, what's the difference? It gives you a worldliness. And that, too, I admire. I am a worldling myself and sophistication is dear to me—"

Color flooded her cheeks. "You have no right to say that! Neither you nor your spy, Hunnewell. It is false!"

His cheeks pinched up. "So Hunnewell told you? He wrote me a very hysterical letter afterward. I'd like to wring the man's skinny neck. There is one mistake I made. I meant Hunnewell as a water carrier, nothing else. The big moments are not for him. When he faced one he fell to pieces. That was just one mistake, and not the greatest. You were very clever, Miss Thatcher. You took me in completely."

"I asked nothing of you," replied Gay. "I wanted you to tell me nothing. I came here only to see and hear what Roaring Horse did. There never was a time when I asked you a question or expected you to tell me anything. Remember that."

"Nevertheless," said Wooifridge, "it was shrewd of the governor. Ah well. He is a canny man. And he has watched me closely. I knew it all the time. But my greatest mistake was in allowing Bangor into my plans. I served him well once and expected a return favor. But he was afraid of me. The higher men go in this world the more cold blooded they become. The more treacherous. I should have held the whip over his head. Whatever I wanted done through his office I ought to have done personally. There is the secret. Do things yourself. But the book is closed. I have no regrets."

"You don't mean that," replied the girl. "You can't mean it. All this will come back to haunt you. You have taken the last penny of many families. What of that?"

"Well, and what of it?" Woolfridge shook his head. "The weak perish, the fit survive. Rightly so. Those people are only pawns, sports of fate. It is in the infinite plan of things that they go down. Why be sorry about it? I do not even let myself be sorry for my failure. That intrigues you, I suppose? All that I have has been given to me. I inherited. What can a man do to satisfy the brute instincts in a case like that? Most men would accept their fortune quietly. Not I."

The last sentence rang through the room. He squared his shoulders, looking over her head as if pronouncing the pervading gospel of his existence. "I broke away. I had the courage to smash the picayune barriers. I had a dream. Of an empire in my own making. It would have been an honest one but for the turn of events. Did I halt when I knew it could not be done honestly? Most men would have halted. I did not. I built another dream and went on. And that is going to pot this night. What of it? I have made my mark on this country. I have been a pirate for a little while. To-night, a hundred men fight for me and against me. What is morally wrong about that? In another age it would have been legal, customary. I broke through, I smashed things. And I glory in it. Now I give it up. But there is always another dream to fashion, my dear girl, another empire over the hill!"

"What are you thinking about?" she whispered, appalled by the primitive emotions boiling behind his civilized trappings.

He smiled. "That is the beginning of another dream. We will go as far as we can."

"You'll be trapped before the hour is over," said she, and slowly edged toward the desk. Watching him, she wondered if he could regard the crash of his plans so lightly, or if he took his responsibilities in so indifferent a manner. He couldn't believe, surely, that he would be able to carry on. Or that life for him would be the same. Yet all of these things he appeared to believe. He was talking, talking. Poorly masking the burning fury inside of him—the checked ambition, the shattered pride. And now that he stopped speaking he betrayed himself completely. His arms were locked in front of him; his whole body had turned to steel—somber and overmastered by a savagery of desire. She saw the blood flecking his eyes, and the color go out of his freckled face. And his next words fairly exploded in the room. "I am taking you with me!"

She swung on her heels and sprang for the desk. One hand ripped open the drawer and touched the little pearl-handled gun lying there. The next moment Woolfridge pushed her away, swept her against the wall. She tried to scream and saw his hand flashing flat against her face. Quite blindly she fought back, tearing at his coat, beating at the white blur in front of her. She had no clear vision of him; somehow, his blow had clouded her eyes and made her dizzy. But she heard his breath rising and falling, and she heard him saying shameful things that made her tremble and resist the harder. A flash of pain ran the whole length of her body; all power went out of her. And then she fell to the floor unconscious.

Woolfridge stared down at her crumpled body a moment and raced to the door. There was nobody in the hall. Coming back he bent and lifted her in his arms. "She had that coming," he muttered, trying to check his breathing. "I will gentle her or I will kill her! Now—"

He carried her down the hall to the back stairway. At the bottom he stopped to listen, ear against the panel of the door leading to the kitchen. Apparently the place was empty. Pushing the door quietly in front of him, he found the place half dark and without occupants. So he carried her through, kicked open still another door leading off from the kitchen into what once had been a storeroom, and was now nothing but a barren, half- forgotten cubicle spread with cobwebs. He laid her on the floor and backed out, turning a crooked key in a rusted lock. Then he paused, with always the rising and falling echo of the mob pressing against his ears. His breathing turned normal and there, with half the men of the county lusting for his blood and all fortune swinging against him, he reverted to the habits of his softer side and methodically brushed the dust of the storeroom off his sleeves.

"She'll be unconscious for a few minutes," he reflected. "That's time enough. Now—"

He left the kitchen by the dining door and entered the lobby, at once confronting the sheriff and Theodorik Perrine. The rest of his followers were huddled by the entrance, staring upon the street.

"About time yuh showed up," growled Perrine. "No time to pick posies with all this brimstone and sulphur yonder."

Woolfridge reached for a cigar, eyes roving over the tremendous spread of Perrine's shoulders. There was something so insolently superior, so critically aloof that the latter's smashed lips began to work wrathfully. "Afraid?" murmured Woolfridge. "I have always prided myself on picking the right men for right places. Perhaps I have been mistaken in you. I never thought you'd let this rabble get under your skin—"

"Afraid?" boomed Perrine, the mighty echo rocketing along the lobby. He lifted his great arms above him, chest muscles crowding against the shirt. "I ain't afraid of any man that ever walked, ever drew breath! Bring that pack in here, and I'll wrap my arms around this shebang and bring it down on their heads! Afraid—hell! But I'm tellin' you, Woolfridge, that the lid's goin' to blow off this town in less time than it takes to swing a cat by the tail. If yuh got anythin' to say or anythin' to do, better get started on it now."

Woolfridge rolled the cigar between his fingers until the sheriff, almost in agony from the suspense, cried out: "My God, Mr. Woolfridge, ain't you got no order to give? Ain't you got no way of settlin' this?"

Woolfridge returned the cigar to his pocket. "Crumbling—caving in—turning yellow. The whole pack of you. When a man wishes anything done in this world he alone ought to do it. How many can you get to barricade this hotel, Perrine?"

"About ten boys," grunted the big man. "But if that's all yuh got to offer I don't think much o' the idee. Yuh either got to charge that bunch and scatter 'em with lead or else yuh got to spread the soft soap and do it sudden. Once they get the bit in their jaws yore sunk."

"Let me do the arranging for my own funeral," was Woolfridge's cold retort.

Perrine, even at that moment, was under the sway of this man. There was just one thing the hulking renegade admired, just one thing he bowed to—a courage equal or superior to his own. He clucked his tonque. "Yore a cool cucumber. Well, spit it out."

"Slip out and bring a pair of horses to the back door to the kitchen door," said Woolfridge. "Hurry it."

Perrine's jaws worked slowly. His face wreathed up in puzzlement. "Then what?"

"Then," went on Woolfridge, holding the big man's eyes, "get your men all in here, turn out the lights, and let them have it. Let—them—have—it!"

"What's the horses for?" pressed the renegade.

"I ask questions, not answer them," snapped Woolfridge. "Didn't I tell you I'd arrange my own funeral? Go on—get about it."

Perrine never said a word for a full minute; it took that length of time for his slow brain to catch Woolfridge's real purpose. But when the realization came to him that this cold, imperturbable gentleman who had always held the whip over him was about to turn and run—and while running let his followers go to their ruin—a swift and ferocious gleam leaped into his eyes. His lips splayed back, snarling. And as one crushing paw rose and fell across Woolfridge's shoulder he was incredibly like some rearing grizzly that had turned to fight. Woolfridge swayed to the force of that massive paw and spoke sharply, yet he couldn't escape it. The stubby fingers dug in; Perrine stepped closer.

"I got yore brand now, Mister Woolfridge. Yuh ain't any better than a yella dawg ki-yippin' down the street with his tail draggin'. I thought yuh had cold-chilled steel in yore system. Thought mebbe yuh even was as tough as me. Why—! So yuh figger to run while we boys stick here and cover yore trail! Like hell we will!"

"What are you being paid for?" challenged Woolfridge. "Did you ever have any doubts as to what I wanted you for, now or any other time? Use your senses. I hired you to destioy for me, do my chores. That is what I want you to do now. Get out there and find my horses."

"Not me," interposed the sheriff. "I won't cover anybody's trail. All I'll do is talk to them boys."

"Yuh won't even do that!" snapped Perrine. He was grinning, though nothing but malice and savage pleasure was in that constriction of lips. "He'll pull his own irons from the fire. Listen, Woolfridge! Listen out there!"

There was no mistaking the sound. Above the steady, sinister murmuring rang a man's high and passionate challenge. And no sooner was it spoken than a roar ran from wall to wall and heavy boots came running toward the hotel. Locklear shook his head and slowly retreated toward the back end of the hotel, followed by the men near the door. Perrine pushed his ugly face close to Woolfridge. "Hear that? Yore a cooked gander. Yuh've had aplenty of fun and drawn big on the bank account. Now stand here, damn yuh, and pay the bills! When I do killin' it'll be my own killin', not yores!"

Woolfridge seemed to withdraw, to pull his senses inward and take stock. The freckled face lost color, yet other than that no change came to his features. Only, when he raised his eyes again to Perrine a fire burned brilliantly in them.

"I have never found a man who could do a thing just as I wanted it done," said he evenly. "A man ought never to depart from his beliefs. I'll do this myself. How many guns have you? Two—well, give me one of them."

Perrine took his left gun and passed it, barrel foremost, to Woolfridge. Then he drew away, keeping a close watch. "Grandstand," he jeered. "Yuh'll scuttle the minute I'm out o' yore sight. Lord help yuh. Yore a dead dawg. Me, I'm gone." He stepped beyond the swinging doors and hesitated a moment, bold eyes studying Woolfridge with something that might have been respect or puzzlement, or perhaps a little of both. Then he was gone from the lobby along with all the others, leaving Woolfridge quite alone.

The rush and clamor of the mob swirled through the street Voices rose higher, a gun exploded, and the foremost of the homesteaders leaped up to the porch. Woolfridge, with his freckled cheeks set tightly and his gun raised to command the door, backed slowly toward the stairway.