Читать книгу The Rider of Golden Bar - William Patterson White - Страница 6

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"Now there," said Riley Tyler, staring at the driver of a buckboard who was tying her team in front of the Rocky Mountain store, "now there is a girl that is pretty as a li'l red wagon, new-painted."

Billy Wingo, unmoved, continued to whittle the end of the packing case he was sharing with Tyler. He did not even look at the girl, and she was a very handsome girl.

"Yeah," said Billy Wingo.

"Not that I cotton to a female girl as a usual thing," resumed Riley, "ever since a experience I had when young. I'll tell you about it some time; maybe I better now."

"No, not now," Billy made haste to say; for he had heard the story of every single one of Tyler's love affairs at least a dozen times. "Le's talk about somethin' pleasant. Try the weather."

"You know, just for that," trundled on Riley Tyler, "we'll go on talking about young Hazel Walton over there. Pity she's gone in the store. You've never taken a good look at her, have you?"

"Nor I don't want to," denied Billy with what seemed to Riley an unnecessary heat.

"Why not? Do your eyes good. Tell you, Bill, she's got the best-looking black hair y'ever saw."

"I saw her once or twice with her uncle," Billy admitted desperately. "She's all you say she is and more too. Anything to please the children. Don't you ever stop talkin', Riley?"

"Not when I got somethin' like Hazel to talk about," declared the relentless Riley, warming to his subject. "Y'oughta notice her eyes once, Bill. Tell you, you never saw eyes till you see hers. They're eyes, they are! Big and black and soft and eyewinkers long as a pony's. Fact. And she ain't lost a tooth. She's still got the whole thirty-four. You take my word for it, Bill, she's a whole lot different from other folks."

"She's two teeth different anyway. Most generally all other folks can crowd in their mouth are thirty-two."

"What's a tooth more or less between friends?" said the unabashed Riley. "She's got a whole mouthful, and when she smiles she shows 'em all."

"That's great," yawned Billy, closing his pocket-knife with a click. "You forgot to say whether she's a good cook or not."

"She's a number one cook," Riley told him seriously. "Her coffee is coffee, lemme tell you, and she don't fry a steak to boot-leather neither. Not her. No. She broils it, she does. Y'oughta taste her mashed potatoes. No lumps in 'em or grit or nothin', only the mealy old potato; and butter beets! My Gawd!"

"Mixes 'em up with the potato, huh?"

"Of course not, you jack—separate. And canned peas—separate. Actually she cooks those peas so they're tender as fresh ones; tenderer, by gummy! Makes her own butter, too, in a churn."

"Well, well, in a churn. I never knew they made butter thataway."

"Shut up, Bill. You ain't got any soul. I stop at Walton's for a meal every chance I get. Y'oughta see her cookin' a meal, Bill. She rolls her sleeves up and she's got dimples in her elbows. She's a picture, and you can stick a pin in that."

"Why don't you marry the girl?"

"I've asked her," was the reply made without rancor. "She said, 'No thanks.'"

"That's one thing in her favor."

"Yeah, I think—Hey! what you tryin' to do, insult me?"

"Insult you, you tarrapin? You wouldn't know it if I did."

"If I wasn't so comfortable, I'd show you something," declared Riley Tyler, sliding farther down on the small of his long back. "But the heat has saved your life, William. Yeah, otherwise you'd be a corpse all bluggy in the middle of Main Street. I'm a wild wolf when I'm riled, you can gamble— Yonder she comes. She didn't stay long."

Billy dug the Tyler shortribs with a hard elbow. "Where's your manners? Go over and untie the lady's team."

"Too far. She'd have 'em untied by the time I got there. Besides, I'm too comfortable. Another thing, I'd have to get up. No, no, I'll stay here."

Hazel Walton stepped into the buckboard, kicked the brake-lever and swung her team like a workman. The tall near mule laid back his long ears and planted both hind feet on the dashboard. Smack! Smack! went the whip. The mule tucked his tail, shook his mean head and tried to jump through his collar. The brake-lever shot forward under the shove of the girl's straightened right leg. The sensible off mule threw his head to the left to ease the hard drag on his mouth as the girl swayed back on the near rein. The near mule, hearing the slither of the locked wheels behind him, and with his windpipe bent like a bow and his chin forced back to his chest, decided that fighting would avail him nothing and quieted at once.

"Regular driver, that girl," Billy said approvingly. "It ain't every woman can drive a pair of those big freight mules. I never knew she was like that."

"Lots of things you dunno," Riley hastened to say. "You didn't even know she was pretty."

Billy hopped across the sidewalk and ran out into the middle of Main Street. The mules, hard held, slid to a halt. Billy scooped up the package that had fallen from behind the seat and hurried up to the buckboard.

"Your tarp's slipped a little, ma'am," said he, stowing away the package without raising his eyes to Miss Walton, who was leaning over the back of the seat. "I'll tie it fast."

Not till the tarpaulin was fastened to his complete satisfaction did he look up. Then he realized that Riley Tyler had not told half the truth about Hazel Walton's eyes. True, they were big and black and soft, but they were deep too, deep as cool rock pools, and they looked at you steadily with a straight look that somehow made you wish that you had been a better boy.

Queer that he hadn't noticed this attribute before. But at none of the two or three times he had passed the girl on Golden Bar's Main Street had she impressed him in the least. He could not have described her to save his life. Perhaps it was because he had not looked into her eyes before to-day. But he wasted no time thinking about that. He kept right on looking into her eyes.

"You don't come in town very often," was his sufficiently inane observation.

"Not very often," said she, and smiled.

Yes, there were the teeth. And weren't they white! He didn't know when he had seen such white teeth. And her mouth had a dimple near one corner. Now the dimple was gone. He wished it would appear once more.

"Do it again," he found himself saying like a fool.

She wrinkled her pretty forehead at him. "What?"

"Smile," he said, with a boldness that surprised himself.

It surprised Hazel Walton, surprised her so that she jerked around to the front, "kissed" to the mules and drove away without a word.

Billy stood quite still in the middle of Main Street, with his hat off, and looked after her a moment. Then he pulled on the hat with a jerk and returned to his packing case.

"What did she say to you?" Riley wanted to know.

"None of your business," was the ungracious reply.

"She left you sort of sudden," persisted Riley. "And why did you stand still in the middle of the street and look after her so forlorn and long?"

"I wasn't lookin' more than ten seconds," denied Billy, jarred off his balance for once in his life.

"Shucks, I had time to roll a cigarette, and smoke it to the butt while you stood there nailed to the earth. Yeah. Tell you, Bill, you don't wanna let your feelings give you away so much. Bad business that is. Somebody's bound to pick your pocket forty ways. Y'oughta play poker more. That would teach you self-control."

"Bluh," grunted Billy. "Think you're smart, don't you?"

"I know I am," returned Riley, crossing one knee over the other and diddling his foot up and down to the thin accompaniment of a tinkling spur-rowel. "I got eyes, I have. I can see through a piece of glass most generally. Oh, mush and milk, love's young dream, and when shall we meet again."

"Aw, hell, shut up!" urged Billy, and shoved his friend off the packing case and went elsewhere hastily.

Riley first swore, then laughed and reseated himself on the case. Jack Murray, passing by, stopped and sneered openly. It was obvious that Jack was in liquor.

"He don't care how much he picks on you, does he?" observed Jack.

Riley Tyler did not move hand or foot. But a subtle change took place. Iron turning into steel undergoes such a metamorphosis. The sixth sense of an observing old gentleman across the street and directly in line with Jack Murray informed its owner of the sudden chill in the air. The observing old gentleman, whose name was Wildcat Simms, oozed backward through a doorway into the Old Hickory saloon.

"Why are you walking like a crab, Wildcat?" queried his friend the bartender.

"Because Jack Murray is talking to Riley Tyler."

The bartender, wise in his generation, was well able to fill in the rest for himself. He joined the old gentleman behind a window at one side of the line of fire.

Riley Tyler, meanwhile, was fixedly regarding Jack Murray.

"Meaning?" said Riley Tyler.

Jack Murray came right out into the open. "Ain't you able to stand up for yourself no more?"

There it was—the deliberate insult. Followed the movement so swift no eye could follow. But Riley's gun caught. Jack Murray's didn't. When the smoke began to wreathe upward in the windless air, Jack Murray was calmly walking away up in the street and Riley Tyler was hunched across the packing case. Blood was running down the boards of the packing case and seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk.

Billy Wingo was the fourth man to reach Riley. The boy, for he was not yet twenty-one, had been turned over on his back on the sidewalk. He was unconscious. Samson, the Green-Front Store owner, was bandaging a wound in Riley's neck.

"Lucky," observed Samson, "just missed the jugular."

"Where else is he shot?" queried Billy, his eyes on the blood-soaked front of Riley's shirt.

"Right shoulder," Samson informed him.

"I heard three shots," said Billy. "Two was close together but the last one was maybe ten seconds later."

"I only found the two holes," declared Samson.

But when Billy and another man picked up Riley to carry him to the hotel, Billy found where the third shot had gone. It had penetrated Riley's back on the left side, bored between two ribs, missed the wall of the stomach by a hair and made its exit an inch above the waistband of the trousers.

The marshal, who had seen the crowd going into the hotel, arrived as Billy and Samson were making Riley as comfortable as possible on a cot in one of the hotel rooms.

The marshal, whose surname being Herring was commonly called "Red," thrust out a lower lip as he surveyed the man on the bed.

"Even break, I hear," said the marshal.

Billy set him right at once. "You heard wrong, Red. Riley's gun caught. I found where the sight had slipped through a crack in the leather. Besides, Riley was plugged in the back after he was down. Do you call that an even break?"

"Well, no," admitted Red Herring, who was inclined to be just, if being just did not interfere with his line of duty. "Anybody see it besides you?"

"I didn't see it a-tall. I didn't have to. I heard the shots—two close together and one a good ten seconds later. Oh, Riley was plugged after he was down and out, all right enough. Besides, Riley was lying across his gun hand when he was picked up, Samson says."

"That's right," nodded Samson.

"Jack was a little previous, sort of," frowned the marshal.

"You think so," said Billy sarcastically. "Maybe you're right."

"Well, I can't do a thing," said the marshal. "I didn't see it. And these fraycases will happen sometimes."

"Nobody's asking you to do anything," said Billy. "I'm looking after this."

"Now don't you go pickin' a fight with anybody," urged the marshal, instantly perceiving his line of duty. "Judge Driver is dead against these promiscuous shootings."

"Judge Driver can go to hell," Billy said with heat. "What's this here but a promiscuous shooting, I'd like to know? And I don't see you arrestin' anybody for it. You said you couldn't."

"I didn't see this one, and besides Riley ain't been killed, and no complaint has been made," defended the marshal, who was no logician. "But where a feller says he's gonna attend to somebody, that shows premeditation and malice aforethought, which both of 'em is against the statute as made and provided in such cases."

"How you do run on," commented Billy.

But the Red Herring lacked a sense of humor. Heavy of soul, he frowned heavily at Billy.

"You go slow," was his fishy advice.

"Be careful and otherwise refrain from violence," observed Billy, whose English became better as his temper grew worse. "I grasp your point of view," he added gravely. "But I don't like it. Not for a minute I don't. I'll do as I think best. I'd rather, really."

"Don't you go startin' nothin' you can't finish," said the marshal, lost in a maze of words. "I don't want to have to arrest you."

"I don't want you to have to either," Billy averred warmly. "Arrestin' me would surely interfere with my plans. Yeah."

"A sheriff-elect had oughta set a good example," argued the marshal.

Riley Tyler rolled his head from side to side. He muttered incoherently. The men about the cot turned to look down at him. Then he said, speaking distinctly:

"He shot me after I was down."

Billy Wingo raised his eyes and stared at the marshal.

"How's that, umpire?" said Billy.

"He's raving," snapped the marshal.

"A man speaks the truth when he's thataway," rebuked Billy. "I'm going to see about this."

But the marshal blocked his way. "I told you——" he began.

"Get out of my way!" directed Billy, his gray eyes ablaze.

The marshal got. After all, he had no specific orders to prevent a meeting between Jack Murray and Billy Wingo. Let Jack look out for himself. No doubt Rafe and sundry other of his friends would be annoyed, but it couldn't be helped. The marshal betook himself hurriedly to the back room of the Freedom Saloon.

Billy, coldly purposeful, made a round of the saloons first. In none of them did he find his man or news of him. Finally, from the stage company's hostler tending a cripple outside the company corral, he learned that Jack had left town.

"Which he went surging off down the Hillsville trail," said the hostler, "like he hadn't a minute to lose. He told me he was going to Hillsville."

"Told you?" Surprisedly.

"Yes, told me, sure. 'If the marshal wants me,' says he, as he loped past, 'tell him I've gone to Hillsville.'"

Here was an odd thing. Jack Murray knew where he stood with the powers that were and consequently knew that the marshal would not want him for the shooting. Yet here was Jack Murray not only leaving town hastily, as though he feared capture, but taking pains to leave word where he was going. The two facts did not fit. True, a gentleman seeking to mislead possible pursuers might lie as to where he was going. In which case such a gentleman would not take a trail like the Hillsville trail—a trail visible from Golden Bar for almost five miles in both directions. But if a person wished to be pursued——

"I think I can see his dust still," said the hostler helpfully, pointing toward the spot where the Hillsville trail entered a grove of pines five miles out.

"I think I see it too," declared Billy grimly, and went hurriedly to the hotel for his rifle and saddle.

Hazel Walton, jogging along the homeward way, was overtaken by a horseman. He nodded and called, "'Lo," as he galloped by. She returned his greeting with careful courtesy. But she scowled and made a little face after his retreating back. She did not like Jack Murray. She never had. The man had repelled her from the moment she first set eyes on him.

It is human nature for one to take an interest in the movement of a person one dislikes. Hazel wondered where Jack Murray was riding so fast. For it was a hot day. Her wonder grew when, twenty minutes after he had passed from sight, she perceived by the hoofmarks that he had left the trail and turned into a dry wash. She knew that the wash led nowhere, that it was a blind alley, a cul-de-sac ending in a rock-strewn, unclimbable slope that was the base of Block Mountain. This wash was a good two miles beyond where the trail entered the grove of pines five miles out of Golden Bar.

Beyond the wash the trail wound up the side of a hill. At the crest of the hill the off mule picked up a stone. Hazel set the brake, tied the reins to the felley of a wheel and jumped to the ground. The stone was in a near fore, and jammed tight. After ten minutes hard hammering and levering with her jackknife she had the stone out.

As she released the foot from between her knees and straightened her back, her gaze swept along the back trail. She saw only sections of trail till it passed beyond the grove of pines five miles out of town. The grove was now three miles behind her. The wash into which Jack Murray had ridden was distant not half a mile. The land on either side of the wash had once been burnt over and had grown up in brush and scraggly jack pine.

Of the pines and spruce that had once covered the ground surrounding the wash, but one tall gray stub remained. The eye of the beholder was naturally drawn to this salient characteristic of the landscape, She saw more than the stub. She saw Jack Murray's horse tied to its bole. There was something queer about the horse's head. Whereas Jack Murray's horse when it passed her on the trail had been a sorrel of a solid color, the head was now whitey-gray.

Hazel was not of an abnormally inquisitive nature, but that a horse's head should change color within the space of half an hour was enough to make any one ask questions. Ever since she and her uncle had come to realize that some one was rustling their cattle, neither of them ever left home without field glasses. Hazel pulled her pair from beneath the seat cushion and focused them on the odd-looking horse.

"Why, it's a flour sack over the horse's head!" she exclaimed. "They say a horse won't whinny if you cover his head. I wonder why Jack doesn't want him to whinny. And where is Jack?"

Two minutes later she found Jack. He was lying on his stomach in the brush behind an outcrop. The outcrop overlooked the trail. Jack's rifle was poked out in front of him. It was only too obvious that Jack was also overlooking the trail. Why?

A few minutes later that question was answered by the sudden appearance of a rider at a bend of the trail a mile back. Jack Murray must have glimpsed the rider at the same time, for Hazel saw him snuggle down like a hare in its form, and alter slightly the position of his rifle, although the rider was not yet within accurate shooting range. With a gasp she recognized the rider on the trail by his high-crowned white hat: only one man in Golden Bar wore such a hat and that man was Billy Wingo. Instantly she recalled what folks were saying of Jack Murray since it had become positively known that the party nomination for sheriff had gone to Billy Wingo, that Jack Murray "had it in" for Billy, that he had made threats more or less vague, and that he had taken to brooding over his fancied wrongs. She realized that the threats had crystallized into action, and that this was an ambush.

She knew that Billy would be masked by a certain belt of trees before he traveled another thirty yards, not to emerge into view again till he topped a rise of ground about a thousand yards from the base of the hill on which she stood. It was a certainty that Jack would not risk a shot till his enemy had crossed the rise of ground. If Hazel could only reach the top of the rise first—

Hazel popped up into the seat of the buckboard as Billy reached the belt of trees. It has been shown that Hazel Walton was a good driver, and she needed every atom of her skill to turn the buckboard in the narrow trail without smashing a wheel against the rocks that some apparently malign agency had seen fit to strew about at that particular spot. The near mule, devil that he was, when he found that he was no longer headed for home, stuck out his lower lip and front legs and balked.

This was unwise of the near mule. He should have chosen a more opportune moment. Hazel had no time to reason with him. She set her teeth, slacked the reins, opened her jack-knife and jabbed an inch and a half of the longer blade into the mule's swelling hip.

It is doubtful whether the recalcitrant mule ever moved faster in his life. The forward spring he gave as the steel perforated his thick hide almost snapped the doubletree. Hazel, her toes hooked under the iron foot-rail, poured the leather into the off mule.

She made no attempt to guide her galloping team. She did not need to. She barely felt their mouths, but ever she kept her whip going, and the mules laid their bellies to the ground and flew down that hill like frightened jack rabbits. And like a rubber ball the buckboard bounced behind them.

Hazel knew that Jack Murray behind his outcrop must hear the thunder of the racing hoofs, the rattle of the swooping buckboard. Half-way down the hill she lost her hat. Promptly every hairpin she possessed lost its grip and her hair came down. In a dark and rippling cloud it streamed behind her.

"Keep your feet, mules!" she gritted through her locked teeth. "Keep your feet, for God's sake!"

And they kept their footing among the rolling stones, or rather a merciful Providence kept it for them. For that hill was commonly a hill to be negotiated with careful regard to every bump and hollow. Hazel's life was in jeopardy every split second, but so was another life, and it was of this other life she was thinking. Reach that white-hatted rider she must before he came within thousand-yard range of the man behind the outcrop.

Within thousand-yard range, yes. Jack Murray's reputation with the long arm was of territorial proportions. He had made in practice, hunting and open competition almost unbelievable scores. Given anything like a fair shot, and it would be hard if he could not hit an object the size of Billy Wingo. All this Hazel Walton knew, and her heart stood still at the thought. But she was of the breed that fights to the last breath and a gasp beyond.

She breathed a little prayer, dropped her right hand on the reins ahead of her left and turned the team around the curve at the foot of the hill as neatly as any stage-driver could have done it. That they swung round on a single wheel did not matter in the least. Beyond the curve one of the front wheels struck a rock that lifted Hazel a foot in the air and shot every single package and the tarpaulin out of the buckboard.

And now the road passed the wash and ran straight for more than half a mile till it disappeared over the rise of ground. Throughout the whole distance it was under the sharpshooting rifle of the man behind the outcrop.

As she clung to the pitching buckboard and plied the whip, she speculated on the probability of Jack Murray firing on her. He must realize her purpose. He had been called many things, but fool was not one of them. He might even shoot her. She recalled dim stories of Jack Murray's ruthlessness and grim singleness of purpose.

"Bound to get what he wants, no matter how," men had said of him.

Four hundred yards from the curve where the buckboard had so nearly upset, a Winchester cracked in the rear. The near mule staggered, tried to turn a somersault, and collapsed in a heap of sprawling legs and outthrust neck. The off mule fell on top of his mate, and Hazel catapulted over the dashboard and landed head first on top of the off mule.

The off mule regained his feet with a snort and a lurch, in the process throwing Hazel into a squaw bush. Dizzy and more than a little shaken, that young woman scrambled back into the trail and feverishly set about unhitching the mule.

She heard a yell from the direction of the outcrop above the wash. Fingers busy with the breast-strap snap, she looked back to see a man hurdle the outcrop and plunge toward her through the brush.

"Wait!" he bawled. "Wait!"

Her reply to this command was to spring to the tail of the mule and shout to him to back. He backed. She twitched both trace cockeyes out of the singletree hooks (she was using the wagon harness that day) tossed the traces over the mule's back and ran round in front to unbuckle the dead mule's reins.

"Halt or I shoot!"

She giggled hysterically. How could she halt when she had not yet started? She freed the second billet, tore the reins through the terrets, and bunched the reins anyhow in her left hand. He was a tall mule, but she swarmed up his shoulder by means of collar and hames, threw herself across his withers and besought him at the top of her lungs to "Go! Go! Go!"

He went. He went as the saying is, like a bat out of hades. Hazel slipped tailward from the withers, settled herself with knees clinging high, and whanged him over the rump with the ends of the reins. He hardly needed any encouragement. Her initial cry had been more than enough.

The man in the brush stopped. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, looked through the sights at the galloping mule, then lowered the firearm and uttered a heartfelt oath. It had at last been borne in upon his darkened soul that he possibly had made a mistake. Instead of shooting the mule, in the first place, he might better have relinquished his plan of ambush and gone his way in peace. There were other places than Golden Bar, plenty of them, where an enterprising young man could get along and bide his time to square accounts with his enemy.

But the killing of the mule had fairly pushed the bridge over. It was, not to put a nice face on it, an attack on a woman. He might just as well have shot Hazel—better, in fact. She had undoubtedly recognized him. Those Waltons both carried field glasses, he had heard.

"I'll get the mule anyhow," he muttered. "That'll put a crimp in her."

He dropped on one knee between two bushes, took a quick sight at the mule's barrel six inches behind the girl's leg and pulled trigger. Over and over rolled the mule, and over and over a short foot in advance of his kicking hoofs rolled Hazel. Luckily she was not stunned and she rolled clear. She scrambled to her feet and set off up the trail as fast as her shaking legs would carry her.

"Damn her!" cursed Jack Murray, notching up his back sight. "I'd oughta drop her! She's askin' for it, the hussy!"

His itching finger trembled on the trigger, but he did not pull. Reluctantly, slowly, he lowered the Winchester and set the hammer on safety. The drink was dying out in him. Against his will he rendered the girl the tribute of unwilling admiration. "Whatsa use? She's got too much nerve; but maybe I can get him still."

On her part the girl pelted on up the rise, stumbled at the top and came down heavily, tearing her dress, bruising her knees and thoroughly scratching the palms of her hands. But she scrambled to her feet and went on at a hobbling run, for she saw below her, rising the grade at a sharp trot, the rider of the white hat.

Now she was waving her arms and trying to shout a warning, though her voice stuck in her throat and she was unable to utter more than a low croak.

Billy Wingo pulled up at sight of the wild apparition that was Hazel Walton. But the check was momentary. He clapped home the spurs and hustled his horse into a gallop. He and Hazel came together literally, forty yards below the crest. The girl seized his stirrup to save herself from falling and burst into hysterical tears.

"Lordy, it's the girl that dropped the package!" exclaimed Billy, dismounting in haste.

He had his arm round her waist in time to prevent her falling to the ground. She hung limply against him, and gasped and choked and sobbed away her varied emotions.

"There, there," he said soothingly, patting her back and, it must be said, marveling at the length and thickness and softness and shininess of her midnight hair. "It's all right. You're all right. You're all right. Nothing to worry about—not a-tall. You're safe. Don't cry. Tell me what's bothering you?"

And after a time, when she could speak coherently, she told him.

It was a disconnected narrative and spotty with gasps and gurgles, but Billy made no difficulty of comprehending her meaning. They who can construct history from hoofmarks in the dust do not require a clear explanation.

When he had heard enough for a working diagram he plumped her down behind a fortuitous stone and adjured her to lie there without moving, which order was superfluous. She did not want to get up again—ever.

Billy stepped to his horse, dragged the Winchester from the scabbard under the near fender and trotted to the top of the rise. Arrived at the crest, he dropped his hat and went forward crouchingly, his rifle at trail. Sheltering his long body behind bushes he dodged zigzaggingly across the top of the ridge to an advantageous position behind a wild currant bush growing beside a jagged boulder.

He lay down behind the wild currant bush and surveyed the landscape immediately in front of him. At first he saw nothing—then two hundred yards away on his right front a sumac suddenly developed an amazingly thick shadow. He automatically drew a fine sight on that sumac.

The shadow of the sumac became thin. A dark objected flitted from it to another bush. The dark object was a man's head. It was hatless. Billy smiled and decided to wait. He understood that he was dealing with a man who could shoot the buttons off his shirt, but on the other hand, Billy did not think meanly of himself as a still hunter. He lay motionless behind the currant bush and watched Jack Murray's advance.

Billy smiled pityingly. It was obvious to him that Jack Murray had never been on a man hunt before. If he had he would have been more careful.

"Good Gawd," Billy said to himself, "it's like taking candy from a child."

It was destined to be even more like taking candy from a child.

Four times before the bold Jack reached the crest of the hill he offered Billy a target he couldn't miss. And each time the latter refrained from shooting. Somehow he was finding it difficult to shoot an unconscious mark. If Jack had been shooting at him or had even been aware of his presence, it would have been different. But to shoot him now was too much like cold-blooded murder. There was nothing of the bushwhacker in the Wingo make-up.

Suddenly at the top of the rise, Jack Murray ducked completely out of sight.

"Must have seen the horse," thought Billy, and looked over his shoulder. No, it was not the horse. Billy was on higher ground than was Jack and he could not see even the tips of his mount's ears.

"It can't be my hat he sees," Billy told himself.

Evidently it was the hat, for while Billy's eyes were on the hat, a rifle cracked where Jack Murray lay hidden and the hat jumped and settled.

"Good thing my head ain't inside," said the wholly delighted Billy, his eyes riveted on the smoke shredding away above the bushes on the right front. "I wonder if he thinks he got me."

It was evident that Jack Murray was wondering too. For the crown of a hat appeared with Jack-in-the-box unexpectedness at the right side of the bush below the smoke. Experience told Billy that a stick was within the crown of the hat which moved so temptingly to and fro.

Three or four minutes later, Jack Murray's hat disappeared and the rifle again spoke.

"Another hole in my hat," Billy muttered resignedly and cuddled his rifle stock against his cheek. "He'll wave his hat again, and then he'll be about ready to go see if the deer is venison."

Even as he foretold, the hat appeared and was moved to and fro, and raised and lowered, in order to draw fire. Then, peace continuing to brood over the countryside, the hat was crammed on the owner's head and the owner, on hands and knees, headed through the brush toward Billy's hat.

Billy was of the opinion that Jack Murray's course would bring him within ten feet. He was right. Jack Murray passed so close that Billy could have reached forth his rifle and touched him with the muzzle. Instead he waited till Jack's back was fairly toward him before he said, "Hands up!"

Jack Murray possessed all the wisdom of his kind. He dropped his rifle and tossed up his hands.

"Stand up. No need to turn around," resumed Billy, Riley Tyler's six-shooter trained on the small of Jack's back. "Lower your left hand slowly and work your belt down. You wear it loose. It'll drop easy. And while you're doing it, if you feel like gamblin' with me, remember that this is Riley's gun and I ain't used to it, and I might have to shoot you three or four times instead of only once, y' understand."

Obviously Jack Murray understood. He lowered his left hand and worked his gun-belt loose and down over his hip bone with exemplary slowness. The shock of his capture had evaporated the last effects of the liquor. He was cold sober and beginning to perceive the supreme folly he had committed in shooting a woman's mount from under her.

"One step ahead," directed Billy when the gun-belt was on the ground. "And up with that left hand."

Jack Murray, thumbs locked together over his head, stepped out of the gun-belt. Billy went to him, rammed the six-shooter muzzle against his spine and patted him from top to toe in search of possible hide-outs. He found none except a pocket knife which did not cause him apprehension.

"Le's take up the thread of our discourse," said Billy, "farther down the hill. Walk along, cowboy, walk along."

With Billy carrying both rifles and Jack's discarded gun-belt, they walked along downhill to where Billy's pony stood in a three-cornered doze. It was then that Jack Murray caught sight of Hazel Walton lying on her back behind a stone, her arms over her face. She looked extremely limp and lifeless.

"I didn't shoot her!" cried the startled Jack.

"I know you didn't," said Billy. "The lady's restin', that's all. We'll wait till she feels like moving."

Hazel Walton uncovered her face. There was a large and purpling lump in the middle of her forehead, the skin of her pretty nose was scratched, a bruise defaced one cheek bone, and one eye was slightly black.

"Your work, you polecat," Billy declared succinctly. "You'll be lynched for mauling her like that."

But Hazel Walton was just. She sat up, supporting herself by an arm, and dispelled Billy's false impression. "He never touched me—and he could have shot me if he'd wanted to."

"So kind of him not to," said Billy with sarcasm. "Who is responsible for hurting you? Your face is bruises all over."

"Is it?" she said, with an indifference born of great weariness. "I suppose it must be. I remember I struck on my face when he shot the mule I was riding. He—he shot both mules."

"He'll be lynched for that, then," Billy said decisively.

"Who'll pay for the mules?" Hazel wished to know. "We needed those mules," she added.

Billy nodded. "That's so. If he's lynched for this attack on you—your mules—same thing if you know what I mean—you lose out on the mules. Maybe we can fix it up."

"Sure we can," Jack Murray spoke up briskly.

"I'm not talkin' to you," pointed out Billy. "Whatever fixing up there is to do, I'll do it. You have done about all the fixing you're gonna do for one while. Yeah. I came out after you, Jack, to make you a better boy, but now that we got you where you'll stand without hitching, I can't do it. I ain't got the heart. Of course, if you were to jump at me or something, or make a dive for your gun I'm holding, I don't say but I'd change my mind in a hurry. I kind of wish you had seen me back there a-lying under my currant bush. Then we'd have had it out by this time, and I'd be going back to town for a shovel."

"Don't you be too sure of that," snarled Jack Murray. "Just you gimme my gun back, and I'll show you something."

"I'll bet you would," acquiesced Billy, "but I'm keeping your guns, both of 'em. I'd feel too lonesome without 'em."

"Can't you do nothing but flap your jaw?" demanded Jack in a huff. "I'd just as soon be downed outright as talked to death."

"But you haven't any choice in the deal," Billy told him in mild surprise. "Not a choice. You shut up. I'll figure out what to do with you. Y'understand, Jack, I've got to be fair to Miss Walton too. If you're lynched she won't get paid for her team, and I can't have her losin' a fine team of mules thisaway and not have a dime to show for it. That would never do. Never. Lessee now. You got any money, Jack?"

"A little."

"How much?"

"Maybe ten or twelve dollars."

"Maybe you've got more. You know you never were good at figures. Lemme look."

He looked. From one of Jack Murray's hip pockets he withdrew a plump leather poke that gave forth a jingling sound. A search of the inner pocket of the vest produced a thin roll of greenbacks. But the bills were all of large denominations.

"There," said Billy, "I knew you'd made a mistake in addition, Jack. You count what's here, Miss Walton."

He tossed the greenbacks and the heavy poke into the lap of the girl who was now sitting up cross-legged, her back against the rock.

"Sixteen hundred and twelve dollars and sixty-five cents," announced Hazel a few minutes later.

"How much did your mules cost?" queried Billy.

"Five hundred and a quarter the team," was the prompt reply.

"Call it six hundred," said Billy briskly. "It's only right for you to take something at an auction thisaway. Strip off six hundred dollars worth of greenbacks and put them in your pocket."

"Oh, I wouldn't feel right about taking more than the regular price," demurred Hazel.

"No reason why you shouldn't. No reason a-tall. Jack's only paying you for the damage he did. He's glad to pay. Ain't you, Jack?"

"I suppose so," grunted Jack.

"There, you see. Your uncle would want you to. I know he would. In fact, he'd be a heap put out if you didn't. Those bumps of your's now. What do you say to one hundred wheels a bump? You got three bumps and a scratched nose. Which last counts as a bump. In round numbers that makes four hundred dollars. One thousand dollars to you, Miss Walton."

"Here!" cried the outraged Jack Murray. "You're robbin' me! You're takin' every nickel I got!"

"No, I ain't," denied Billy, "and don't go and get excited and put those hands down. Don't you, now. About that money—the worst is yet to come. Young Riley Tyler not being here to assess his own damages, I'll assess 'em for him. You put three holes in Riley. Call it two hundred dollars a hole. That makes six hundred dollars. Just put that six hundred in a separate pile for Riley, Miss Walton."

"I don't mind the man paying for the mules," said Miss Walton firmly, "but I can't take any money for my scratch or two."

Billy looked at her, decided she meant it and said:

"All right, put that four hundred with Riley's six. Riley won't mind."

"But I do!" shouted Jack Murray, his arms quivering with rage. "You can't rob me thisaway. By Gawd——"

"Now, now," Billy cut in sharply, "no swearing. You forget Miss Walton. You're right about the money, though. I can't rob you. Miss Walton, dump all that money back in the poke and hand it to him. He wants to go back to Golden Bar and be lynched."

"I got friends in Golden Bar," blustered the prisoner.

"None of 'em will be your friends after I tell 'em what you did to Miss Walton, Jack. There's a prejudice in this country against hurting a woman. Folks don't like it. Aw right, get a-going, feller. No, the other way—toward Golden Bar."

A hearty groan wrenched itself from the depths of Murray's being. "Uncle! Uncle!" he cried angrily. "Have it your own way. I don't want to go to the Bar. Take all my money and be done with it."

"I wouldn't think of such a thing," declared Billy, "though it wouldn't be any more than right if I did. You're getting off too easy. You'll live to be hung yet, I'm afraid, but I can't just see my way to downing you now and here. No, you divide the money again, Miss Walton. Six hundred for you, a thousand for Riley and twelve dollars and sixty-five cents tobacco money for this gentleman.— Don't bother reaching for the money, Jack. I'll put it in your pocket. There you are. Now, Miss Walton, if you'll wait here while I get this citizen started— You've got a horse somewhere, I expect, Jack. Lead the way."

"Oh, sure I saw him off all right. I don't guess he'll be back for a while—not if he has brains. You know, I owe you a lot, Miss Walton. You did the bravest thing I ever knew a man or woman to do. You gambled your life to save mine. You might have been killed, you know it? And after me getting fresh there in the street, I dunno what to say, I don't."

He knew that he was talking too much. But in the reaction that had set in he was so embarrassed that it hurt.

"Yeah!" he gabbled on, red to the ears, "you certainly are a wonder. I—uh—I guess we better be getting back to town. You feel able to ride now? My horse is gentle. Besides, I'll lead him."

It was then that reaction set in for Hazel Walton. As the strain on her nerves eased off, everything went black before her eyes and she keeled over sidewise in a dead faint.