CHAPTER IIIA GIRL WAITS
Lamo, sprawling on a sun-baked plain perhaps a mile from the edge of the desert, was one of those towns which owed its existence to the instinct of men to foregather. It also was indebted for its existence to the greed of a certain swarthy-faced saloon-keeper named Joel Ladron, who, anticipating the edict of a certain town marshal of another town that shall not be mentioned, had piled his effects into a prairie schooner—building and goods—and had taken the south trail—which would lead him wherever he wanted to stop.
It had chanced that he had stopped at the present site of Lamo. Ladron saw a trail winding over the desert, vanishing into the eastern distance; and he knew that where trails led there were sure to be thirsty men who would be eager to look upon his wares.
Ladron’s history is not interesting. As time fled to the monotonous clink of coins over the bar he set up in the frame shack that faced the desert trail, Ladron’s importance in Lamo was divided by six.
The other dispensers had not come together; they had appeared as the needs of the population seemed to demand—and all had flourished.
Lamo’s other buildings had appeared without ostentation. There were twenty of them. A dozen of the twenty, for one reason or another, need receive nofurther mention. Of the remaining few, one was occupied by Sheriff Gage; two others by stores; one answered as an office and storage-room for the stage company; and still another was distinguished by a crude sign which ran across its weather-beaten front, bearing the legend: “Lamo Eating-House.” The others were private residences.
Lamo’s buildings made some pretense of aping the architecture of buildings in other towns. The eating-house was a two-story structure, with an outside stairway leading to its upper floor. It had a flat roof and an adobe chimney. Its second floor had been subdivided into lodging-rooms. Its windows were small, grimy.
Not one of Lamo’s buildings knew paint. The structures, garish husks of squalor, befouled the calm, pure atmosphere, and mocked the serene majesty of nature.
For, beginning at the edge of “town,” a contrast to the desert was presented by nature. It was a mere step, figuratively, from that land from which came the whisper of death, to a wild, virgin section where the hills, the green-brown ridges, the wide sweeps of plain, and the cool shadows of timber clumps breathed of the promise, the existence, of life.
To Barbara Morgan, seated at one of the east windows of the Lamo Eating-House—in the second story, where she could look far out into the desert—the contrast between the vivid color westward and the dun and dead flatness eastward, was startling. For she knew her father had entered the desert on his wayto Pardo, on some business he had not mentioned; and the whispered threat that the desert carried was borne to her ears as she watched.
On a morning, two days before, Morgan had left the Rancho Seco for Pardo. The girl had watched him go with a feeling—almost a conviction—that she should have kept him at home. She had not mentioned to him that she had a presentiment of evil, for she assured herself that she should have outgrown those puerile impulses of the senses. And yet, having watched him depart, she passed a sleepless night, and early the next morning had saddled her horse to ride to Lamo, there to await her father’s return.
It was late in the afternoon when she reached Lamo; and she had gone directly to the Eating-House, where she had passed another restless night—spending most of her time sitting at the window, where she was at this minute.
Of course it was a three-day trip to Pardo, and she had no reason to expect Morgan to return until the end of the sixth day, at the very earliest. And yet some force sent her to the window at frequent intervals, where she would sit, as now, her chin resting in her hands, her eyes searching the vast waste land with an anxious light.
An attaché of the Eating-House had put her horse away—where, she did not know; and her meals had been brought to her by a middle-aged slattern, whose probing, suspicion-laden glances had been full of mocking significance. She had heard the woman speak of her to other female employees of the place—and onceshe had overheard the woman refer to her as “that stuck-up Morgan heifer.”
Their coarse laughter and coarser language had disgusted the girl, and she had avoided them all as much as possible.
It was the first time she had remained overnight in the Eating-House lodging-rooms, though she had seen the building many times during her visits to Lamo. It wasn’t what she was accustomed to at the Rancho Seco, nor was it all that a lodging-house might be—but it provided shelter for her while she waited.
The girl felt—as she looked—decidedly out of place in the shabby room. Many times during her vigil she had shuddered when looking at the dirty, threadbare ingrain carpet on the floor of the room; oftener, when her gaze went to the one picture that adorned the unpapered walls, she shrank back, her soul filled with repugnance.
Art, as here represented, was a cheap lithograph in vivid colors, of an Indian—an Apache, judging from his trappings—scalping a white man. In the foreground, beside the man, was a woman, her hair disheveled, wild appeal in her eyes, gazing at the Indian, who was grinning at her.
A cheap bureau, unadorned, with a broken mirror swinging in a rickety frame; one chair, and the bed in which she had tried to sleep, were the only articles of furniture in the room.
The girl, arrayed in a neat riding habit; her hair arranged in graceful coils; her slender, lissom figure denoting youth and vigor; the clear, smooth skin ofher face—slightly tanned—indicating health—was as foreign to her present surroundings as life is foreign to the desert. In her direct eyes was the glow of sturdy honesty that had instantly antagonized the slattern who had attended her.
That glow was not so pronounced now—it was dulled by anxiety as she looked out of the window, watching the desert light fade as twilight came, blotting the hot sand from her sight, erasing the straight, unfeatured horizon, and creating a black void which pulsed with mystery.
She sighed when at last she could no longer penetrate the wall of darkness; got up and moved her chair to one of the front windows, from where she could look down into Lamo’s one street.
Lamo’s lights began to flicker; from the town’s buildings sounds began to issue—multisonous, carrying the message of ribaldry unrestrained.
From a point not very far away came the hideous screeching of a fiddle, accompanied by a discordant, monotonous wail, as of someone singing a song unfamiliar to him; from across the street floated a medley of other noises, above which could be heard the jangling music of a heavily drummed piano. There came to her ears coarse oaths and the maudlin laughter of women.
She had heard it all the night before; but tonight it seemed that something had been added to the volume of it. And as on the night before, she sat at the window, watching—for it was all new and strange to her—even if unattractive. But at last the horror ofit again seized her, and she closed the window, determined to endure the increased heat.
Half an hour later, lying, fully dressed, on the bed, she heard a voice in the hallway beyond the closed door of her room—a man’s voice.
“It isn’t what one might call elegant,” said the voice; “but if it’s the best you’ve got—why, of course, it will have to do.”
The girl sat straight up in bed, breathless, her face paling.
“It’s Luke Deveny!” she gasped in a suffocating whisper.
The man’s voice was answered by a woman’s—low, mirthful. The girl in the room could not distinguish the words. But the man spoke again—in a whisper which carried through the thin board partition to the girl:
“Barbara Morgan is in there—eh?” he said and the girl could almost see him nodding toward her room.
This time the girl heard the woman’s voice—and her words:
“Yes she’s there, the stuck-up hussy!”
The voice was that of the slattern.
The man laughed jeeringly.
“Jealous, eh?” he said. “Well, sheisa mighty good-looking girl, for a fact!”
That was all. The girl heard Deveny step into a room—the room adjoining hers; she could hear his heavy boots striking the floor as he removed them.
For a long time the girl rested on her elbow, listening;but no further sounds came from the room into which Deveny had gone. At last, trembling, her face white with fear, the girl got up and stole noiselessly to the door.
A light bolt was the door’s only fastening; and the girl stood long, with a hand upon it, considering its frailty. How easy it would be for a big man like Deveny to force the door. One shove of his giant shoulder and the bolt would give.
Stealthily, noiselessly, straining with every ounce of her strength, she managed to lift the cheap bureau and carry it to the door, placing it against the latter, barricading it. Not satisfied, she dragged the bed over against the bureau.
Even when that had been accomplished, she was not satisfied and during the greater part of the night she sat on the edge of the bed, listening and watching the door. For in the days that had fled Deveny had said certain things to her that she had not repeated to her father; he had looked at her with a significance that no man could have understood; and there had been a gleam in his eyes at these times which had convinced her that behind the bland smoothness of him—back of the suave politeness of his manner—was a primitive animalism. His suave politeness was a velvet veil of character behind which he masked the slavering fangs of the beast he really was.
CHAPTER IVHIS SHADOW BEFORE
At ten o’clock the following morning, in a rear room of “Balleau’s First Chance” saloon—which was directly across the street from the Lamo Eating-House—Luke Deveny and two other men were sitting at a card-table with bottle and glasses between them. A window in the eastern side of the room gave the men an unobstructed view of the desert, and for half an hour, as they talked and drank, they looked out through the window.
A tall, muscular man with a slightly hooked nose, keen blue eyes with a cold glint in them, black hair, and an equally black mustache which revealed a firm-lipped mouth with curves at the corners that hinted of cynicism, and, perhaps cruelty, was sitting at the table so that he faced the window. His smile, as he again glanced out of the window, roved to Deveny—who sat at his right.
“One man—an’ a led horse,” he said shortly. “Looks like Laskar.”
Deveny—big, smooth-shaven—with black, glowing, attractive eyes that held a glint quite as hard as that which shone in the eyes of the speaker, looked long out of the window at a moving dot on the desert, which seemed to be traveling toward them. Deveny had looked before; but now he saw two dots where atother times he had seen only one. His lips held a slight pout as he glanced at the speaker.
“You’re right, Rogers,” he said; “there’s only one. The old fool must have put up a fight.”
Deveny filled a glass from the bottle and drank slowly. His features were large. His nose was well shaped, with wide nostrils that hinted of a fiery, passionate nature; his thrusting chin and the heavy neck muscles told of strength, both mental and physical—of mental strength that was of a tenacious character, of physical strength that would respond to any demand of the will.
He was handsome, and yet the suggestion of ruthlessness in the atmosphere of him—lurking behind the genial, easy-going exterior that he wore for appearances—or because it was his nature to conceal his passions until he desired to unleash them—was felt by those who knew him intimately. It had been felt by Barbara Morgan.
Deveny was king of the lawless element in the Lamo section. The magnetism of him; the arrogance, glossed over with the calm and cold politeness of his manner; his unvarying immaculateness; the air of large and complete confidence which marked his every action; the swiftness with which he struck when he was aroused, or when his authority was questioned, placed him without dissent at the head of the element that ruled the Lamo country.
Deveny ruled, but Deveny’s rule was irksome to Strom Rogers—the man to whom Deveny had just spoken. For while Deveny drank, Rogers watchedhim with covert vigilance, with a jeering gleam far back in his eyes, with a secret envy and jealousy, with hatred and contempt and mockery.
Yet there was fear in Rogers’ eyes, too—a mere glimmer of it. Yet it was there; and when Deveny set his glass down and looked straight at Rogers, it was that fear which brought the fawning, insincere smirk to Rogers’ lips.
“See the girl?” questioned Rogers.
Deveny laughed lowly. Apparently he did not notice the glow in Rogers’ eyes; but had Rogers looked closely he might have seen Deveny’s lips straighten as he shot a glance at the other.
“Had the room next to her last night. Heard her drag the bed in front of the door of her room. She knew I was there, all right!” Deveny laughed deeply. “She’s wised up by this time. Lolly Kaye hates her—because Barbara’s a good-looking girl, I suppose. That’s like some women. Lolly would see Barbara roasting in hell and not give her a hand!”
“Lolly’s been disappointed in love—I reckon.” Rogers’ laugh was hollow, mirthless. And again Deveny shot a glance at him.
“But you didn’t bother her—Barbara?” questioned Rogers in a dry, light voice.
“No,” grinned Deveny; “that time hasn’t come—yet. It’s coming soon. I told Lolly to keep an eye on her; I’ve got Engle and Barthman and Kelmer watching at the doors so Barbara can’t light out for the Rancho Seco. She don’t get away until tomorrow. Then she goes with me to the end of Sunset Trail.I’ve sent Shorty Mallo to Willow’s Wells for the parson.”
“Barbara know what’s up?” Rogers’ voice was low and throaty.
Again Deveny glanced at him—sharply.
“Hell, no!” he snapped. “It’s none of her damned business—nor anybody’s!” He grinned maliciously when he saw Rogers’ face whiten.
“Barbara will need a husband now,” Deveny went on. “With old Morgan gone and her brother sloped from the home ranch, she’ll be kind of lonesome. I aim to cure her of that.”
He laughed, and Rogers writhed inwardly. For Rogers had long nursed a secret hope that one day the fates might take a notion to give him the chance that Deveny intended to seize.
But Rogers was forced to conceal his jealousy and disappointment. He laughed mirthlessly.
“So she can’t get away, eh?—she’s corralled!”
“Bah!” declared Deveny; “she won’t want to get away—once she knows what I mean—that it’s going to be a regular wedding. She’ll raise a fuss, most likely, to make folks believe she’s unwilling, but in the end she’ll get over it.”
Deveny glanced out of the window at the blot that was now closer.
“It’s Laskar, all regular,” he said. “He’s leading a sorrel horse—Dolver’s horse. Old Morgan got Dolver—looks like, the damned old gopher! Men as willing as Dolver are not found every day.” He looked at the third man, who had not spoken.
“Lawson,” he said, “you mosey down the trail a little piece and meet Laskar. Bring him here!”
Lawson, a thin-faced, medium-sized man with narrow shoulders, whose distinguishing mark was a set of projecting upper teeth that kept his mouth in a continual smirking smile, got up quickly and went out. Deveny and Rogers, their thoughts centered upon the same person—Barbara Morgan—sat silent, watching Lawson as he rode down the street toward the point where the trail, crossing the broken stretch of country that intervened, merged into the desert.
Half an hour later Laskar, holding his chest, where Purgatory had kicked him, was sitting at the table in the rear room of the First Chance, cursing with a fluency that he had not yielded to in many years.
“Dolver’s wiped out!” he gasped hoarsely; “plugged so quick he didn’t know he was hit. A center shot—plumb in the heart; his own gun goin’ off while he was fallin’. I looked him over—after. He was croaked complete. Then that sober-faced hyena lifts my gun—an’ the rifle—an’ says things to me, which I don’t try to cross him. Then he goes behind the rock—where we was havin’ it out—an’ while he’s gone I tries to git my guns from under that devil-eyed cayuse of his’n.
“An’ I don’t succeed—noways. That black devil turns on a half-dollar an’ plants his hoofs plumb in my breast-bone. If I’d been an inch nearer, or if he’d have kicked me a foot lower, or a foot higher, I’d be layin’ out there where Dolver is now, the coyotes an’ the buzzards gnawin’ at me.”
Unmoved by Laskar’s incoherence, Deveny calmly watched him. And now, when Laskar paused for breath, Deveny spoke slowly:
“Ablackhorse, you said. How did a black horse get there? Old Morgan rode a bay when he left Lamo—Balleau says.”
“Did I say Morgan rode a black horse?” queried Laskar, knowledge in his eyes that he had a thing to tell that would blanch their faces. He grinned, still holding his chest, his glance malicious.
“Did I say ablackhorse?” he repeated. “Did I say Morgan rode a black horse? Morgan didn’t. Morgan rode a bay—an’ the Chief run it off after he shot Morgan. But Morgan didn’t die right away, an’ the Chief he had to slope, he said—an’ he did—leavin’ me an’ Dolver to finish old Morgan.
“We was tryin’ our damnedest when this guy on the black horse pops up out of nowhere an’ salivates Dolver.”
“Who was it?”
This was Deveny. He was now leaning forward, a pout on his lips, watching Laskar with an intent, glowering gaze.
“‘Drag’ Harlan!” shouted Laskar. His face lighted with a hideous joy as he watched the effect of his news.
“‘Drag’ Harlan! Do you hear?” he went on. “‘Drag’ Harlan, the Pardo ‘two-gun’ man! He’s headed toward Lamo. He bored Dolver, an’ he said that soon as Morgan cashed in he was hittin’ the breeze for here!”
Lawson, the man who had gone to meet Laskar, ejaculated hoarsely, and stood rigid, his mouth open, his eyes bulging. It was the involuntary expression of the astonishment and fear that had seized him. Laskar forgot the pain in his chest long enough to straighten and grin at Lawson.
Rogers’ face had changed color. He, too, had become rigid. He had been in the act of reaching for the bottle on the table, and the hand that had been extended had been suddenly drawn back, so that the hand was now midway between his body and the bottle—and the fingers were clenched. The other hand, under the table, was likewise clenched, and the muscles of his jaws were corded. Into his eyes had come a furtive, restless gleam, and his face had paled.
Deveny gave no visible sign of perturbation. He coolly reached out, grasped the bottle that Rogers had been reaching for, and poured some of the amber fluid into one of the glasses. The other men watched him silently—all of them intent to note the tremor they expected to see.
Deveny’s hand did not tremble. He noted the glances of the men—the admiration that came into their eyes as with steady muscles he raised the glass and drank—and he smiled with slight contempt.
“Coming here, eh?” he said evenly. “So he said that. Did he mention what he was coming for?”
“He didn’t mention,” replied Laskar.
“So he downed Dolver. Did he say what for?”
“Said Dolver had shot up his partner, Davey Langan—back in Pardo. Harlan was evenin’ up.”
“What do you know about Harlan?”
The question was addressed to all of them.
Rogers answered.
“He’s a bad guy—all bad. He’s an iceberg, an’ he’s got the snakiest gun-hand of any man in the country. Draws hesitatin’-like. A man don’t know when he’s goin’ to uncork his smoke-wagons. I seen him put Lefty Blandin’ out. He starts for his guns, an’ then kind of stops, trickin’ the other guy into goin’ for his. Then, before the other guy can get his gun to workin’, Harlan’s stickin’ his away, an’ the guy’s ready for the mourners.
“Harlan got his handle that way. He goes for his guns so slow an’ hesitatin’ that he seems to drag ’em out. But some way he’s always shootin’ first. An’ they always let him off because it’s mighty plain that the other guy tried to draw first.”
“I’ve heard that,” said Deveny slowly. “What’s his record?”
“Plays her a lone hand,” returned Rogers. He watched the other steadily.
Deveny toyed with a glass as he gazed out of the window. There was a cold, sullen gleam in his eyes when he finally looked at Laskar.
“You said Harlan told you he was coming here as soon as Morgan cashed in. According to that, Morgan must have been hit bad.”
“The Chief said he bored him plenty. An’ me an’ Dolver must have got him some.”
“You didn’t get a chance to search Morgan?”
“No chance—he fit like a hyena; an’ when he gotbehind that damned rock there was no way of gettin’ at him.”
“Then,” said Deveny, “according to what you say, Harlan will come here as soon as Morgan dies. And when you left there Morgan was in a bad way. Harlan is due most any time, then.”
“That’s the way I figger,” agreed Laskar.
And now Laskar fidgeted. “I aim to be hittin’ the breeze now—before Harlan hits town. This climate is gettin’ unhealthy for me. Harlan give me notice.”
“To leave town?”
It was Deveny who spoke. There was a snarl in his voice; he leaned forward and scowled at Laskar.
Laskar nodded.
Rogers cleared his throat, and Lawson moved his feet uneasily.
Deveny’s scowl faded; he grinned coldly.
“Giving orders—is he?” he snapped. “Well, we’ll see.” He laughed. “When Harlan hits town it will be a sign that old Morgan’s crossed the Divide. Well, there was no witnesses to Morgan’s cashing in, and one man’s word is as good as another’s in this country.”
“Meanin’?” questioned Rogers, noting the light in Deveny’s eyes.
“Meaning that Laskar is going—right now—to whisper into Sheriff Gage’s ear that he saw our friend, ‘Drag’ Harlan, killing old Morgan.”
Rogers got to his feet, grinning. The gleam in his eyes indicated that he felt some relief over the prospect presented by Deveny’s suggestion.
“Of course we ain’t sure Harlan means to make trouble here,” he told Deveny; “but it’s just as well to shove him off onto the sheriff.”
The four men walked to the front door of the First Chance, after pausing for a few minutes at the bar.
Outside, halting for an instant on the board platform in front of the saloon, Rogers, who had been the first to emerge, started as he glanced toward the desert, and then stood rigid, shading his hands with his eyes against the sun that poured into his face.
“He’s comin’ now!” he said.
Deveny and the others also looked into the blinding glare of the sun—likewise shading their eyes. And they saw, far out upon the vast sea of sand—yet not so far that they could not distinguish objects—a black horse coming steadily toward them.
Deveny was strangely silent, glowering toward the desert; Rogers folded his arms and faced the oncoming rider and the somber-coated animal he bestrode; Lawson scowled; and Laskar nervously estimated the distance that stretched between himself and the steady-eyed man who had told him certain things in a voice that had been entirely convincing.
CHAPTER VA PRISON
Barbara Morgan had not been able to sleep except by fits and starts. A dozen times during the night she had caught herself on the verge of sinking into deep slumber, and each time she had got up and washed her eyes with some water from a pitcher on the bureau, determined that she would not take any chances of permitting Deveny to surprise her.
When the dawn came she was haggard and tired; and she got up listlessly, combed her hair, and washed her face, and dragged away the pieces of furniture that had formed the barricade at the door.
She felt more secure with the dawn, and when the sunlight began to stream into the east windows she opened the door of the room, descended the stairs, and took a short walk to the edge of town.
Returning, she saw a man arrayed in overalls, boots, a blue woolen shirt, and broad felt hat, standing in the doorway of the stable that, she felt, belonged to the Eating-House. Sight of the stable brought to her thoughts of her horse—Billy—and she decided to determine if the man who had taken charge of him had put him into the stable.
She paused before the door, directly in front of the man, who did not move aside to permit her to enter.
She thought at first that he was not aware of her desire—until she observed an amused light in his eyes;and then she knew that he was purposely barring her way.
“This is the Eating-House stable, I suppose?” she inquired quietly.
“You’re supposin’ is a heap correct, ma’am,” grinned the man.
“Well,” she said, “if you will kindly step aside I shall see if my horse is all right.”
“Your horse is all right, ma’am,” returned the man. “I’ve just fed him.”
Irritated by his attitude, she spoke sharply:
“Step aside, please; I am going into the stable!”
The man grinned widely. “It’s ag’in’ orders, ma’am; you’ll have to stay out.”
“Whose orders?”
“Deveny’s. You ain’t to go into the stable.”
She hesitated, afflicted with a queer sensation of weakness and indecision.
It was her fear of Deveny, she supposed, that made her feel that way, together with the conviction that Deveny must have known that she had been in the room next to the one he had taken, even before he had ascended the stairs. It seemed to her that this deliberate interference with her must be inspired by evil intentions, and for an instant panic overtook her.
Then, yielding to the flash of anger that surged over her, she drew the small revolver she always carried with her on her rides, and presented it. She stepped back a little, so that the man might not strike the weapon from her hand, and spoke shortly, commandingly to him.
“Get away from that door!”
“Shootin’, ma’am?” he drawled. “Oh, don’t!”
He grinned at her and calmly began to roll a cigarette, at which action she gulped with dismay, wheeled swiftly, and walked to the stairs. She went up proudly enough, her head held high, for she divined that the man would be watching her. But when she entered her room her pride forsook her, and she sank into a chair by the east window, dismayed and frightened.
While she sat there the slatternly woman slowly opened the door and stuck her head in. She grinned widely at Barbara.
“Goin’ ridin’ this mawnin’, deary?”
Barbara looked at her, saw the mockery in the jealous eyes, and turned her head again, making no reply.
“Too stuck up to talk, eh?” jibed the slattern. “Well, before you get out of here you’ll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an’ your airs! If you want any grub this mawnin’ you’ll come down an’ grab it yourself, I’m tellin’ you that.”
She slammed the door, her jeering laugh penetrating the partition with hideous resonance.
After the woman had gone Barbara got up, her lips set in resolute lines.
Once in the hall she started to walk toward the stairs, when she saw the cowboy of the stable lounging against the rail on the platform. He saw her at the instant she looked at him, and he grinned hugely.
“I reckon you’ve noticed I’ve sort of shifted,” he said. “I keep goin’ up—gettin’ higher in the world.”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Just loafin’, I reckon,” grinned the other. “An’ obeyin’ orders,” he added instantly. “Much as I hate to disconvenience a lady, I ain’t takin’ no chances on rilin’ Deveny.”
“Do you mean that Deveny placed you here to watch me?”
“He didn’t issue no particular orders as to where I was to do my standin’. But he was sure earnest about sayin’ that you wasn’t to leave your room.”
“I left it once this morning.”
“My fault,” he grinned. “I was sneakin’ a drink in the Antler, an’ you slipped me. I’m bettin’ it don’t happen ag’in!”
Overcome with a cold terror that suddenly seized her, Barbara wheeled and re-entered her room, standing for an instant at the door as she locked it, and then walking to the chair and sinking nervelessly into it.
Somehow, she sensed the futility of further effort at escape. She was aware of Deveny’s power in the country; she knew that he ruled Lamo as he ruled every foot of land in the section; and she was convinced that it would be wasted effort to call for help. Even her own sex—represented by the slattern, and most of the women in Lamo were of that type, in character—seemed to be antagonistic toward her. It seemed to her that they would mock her as the slattern had mocked her, should she appeal to them.
And as for the men of Lamo, they were not to be considered. She was certain she could not induce oneof them to act contrary to Deveny’s wishes. For her father had told her about Lamo’s men—how they were slaves to the will of the man whose deeds of outlawry had made him feared wherever men congregated; and she knew Lamo itself was a sink-hole of iniquity where women were swallowed by the evil passions of men.
She might have appealed to Gage, the sheriff, and she thought of Gage while she sat at the window. But Gage, her father had told her, with disgust in his eyes, was a man of colorless personality and of little courage—a negligible character upon whom the good people of the section, who were pitifully few, could not depend. Her father had told her that it was his opinion that Gage, too, was a slave to Deveny’s will.
She wished now that she had not yielded to the impulse which had brought her to Lamo; but her lips grew firm and her eyes defiant as she at last got up and walked to one of the front windows.
Now, more vividly than ever, could she understand the significance of Deveny’s glances at her in the past; the light in his eyes had been an expression of premeditated evil, awaiting an opportunity.
She was pale, and her hands were trembling as she placed them on the sill of the front window and glanced down into the street, hoping that she might see a friendly face; praying that one of the Rancho Seco men might have come to town during the night.
But she saw no one she knew. Indeed, except for a pony standing in front of a saloon down the street a little distance, and several others hitched to a railacross the street, in front of the First Chance saloon, Lamo seemed to be deserted. And a silence, deep and portentous of evil, seemed to have settled over the town.
But as she leaned upon the sill a sound floated to her through the open window—a man’s voice, so close to her that it made her start and stiffen. It was Deveny’s voice, and it seemed to come from a point in the street directly beneath the window.
“Did you find Gage?” it said.
Barbara leaned forward a little and looked downward. Below her, on the narrow board-walk that ran in front of the Eating-House, were four men. She recognized three of them—Deveny, Strom Rogers, and Meeder Lawson, the Rancho Seco foreman.
The other man was a stranger. Evidently it was the stranger to whom Deveny had spoken, for it was the stranger who answered.
“He’s in his office now.”
Deveny turned to Lawson and Rogers. “You two wait here, Laskar and myself will do the talking to Gage.” He started away with the man who had answered him; then called back over his shoulder: “Hang around; if there’s trouble, you’ll want to get in on it.”
Deveny and Laskar walked down the street; the girl saw them enter the building occupied by the sheriff.
Wondering, intensely curious—for that word “trouble” meant shooting in the vocabulary of men of the Deveny type—Barbara drew back until she was certain the men in the street could not see her.
When Deveny and Laskar disappeared, Strom Rogers laughed sneeringly:
“Deveny’s scared of ‘Drag’ Harlan, I reckon. It’s a cheap frame-up.”
“Aw, hell,” jibed the other; “you’re jealous, that’s all. You’d like to see Harlan plug Deveny, eh; so’s you’d have a chance with Barbara Morgan. I’d be a heap careful, if I was you, Rogers. Deveny knows you took a shine to Barbara Morgan. I seen him lookin’ hostile at you when you was quizzin’ him in Balleau’s. He’s next.”
“This is a free country,” returned Rogers. The girl caught the malignant note in his voice, and she leaned outward a little, trying to see his face, while she shivered with dread.
“Yes,” laughed Lawson; “a man can cash in without any excuse, usual; all he’s got to do is to cross Deveny. You’re a damned fool, Strom, to go to takin’ a shine to Barbara Morgan, when Deveny wants her. He’s been waitin’ for her, an’ meanin’ to have her, all along. He’s only been waitin’ until ol’ Morgan cashed in, so’s he’d have a chance to take her. Now that Morgan’s dead his chance has come.”
Silently, her face dead white, her eyes closed, Barbara slipped backward and crumpled into a heap on the dirty carpet of the room.
When she again opened her eyes it was to look wildly at the open window through which the terrible news had come. Then she dragged herself to it, and making no sound leaned her arms on the sill and listened again, her heart seeming to be in the clutch oficy fingers, her brain atrophied, reeling in a chaos of incoherent, agonized impulses.
She did not know how long she had been unconscious. She saw that Rogers and Lawson were still below, and still talking. So keen was her sense of hearing—every nerve straining in the effort to learn more—that the voices of the men came in through the window with a resonance that, she felt, must be audible to every person in Lamo.
“It ain’t my style, that’s all. I’d meet Harlan on the level, man to man, if he was lookin’ for me. It’s likely he ain’t at that. I’ve heard, bad as he is, that he plays square. An’ if I was runnin’ things I’d take a look at him before chargin’ him with killin’ Lane Morgan, when the killin’ had been done by the Chief, an’ Dolver, an’ Laskar.”
It was Strom Rogers’ voice. It bore conviction with it, even though there was passionate feeling behind it, mingled strangely with personal hatred and jealousy.
Dumbly, Barbara clutched the window-sill. One dry, agonized sob racked her; and then she sat on the floor, to stare vacantly at the dingy walls of the room.
Once more she heard Rogers’ voice; this time there was a note of savage glee in it:
“There’s Harlan now, just slippin’ off his cayuse in front of Gage’s place. ‘Drag,’ eh? Well, there don’t seem to be nothin’ impedin’ his actions anywhere.”
Prompted by the urge of a curiosity that she could not resist, Barbara reeled to her feet, and with herhands resting on the window-sill leaned out and looked up the street.
In front of the sheriff’s office, not more than thirty or forty feet distant, she saw a tall, well-built man standing beside the hitching rail that fringed the board sidewalk. He had evidently just dismounted, and he was standing at the head of a big, coal-black horse. He was in the act of hitching the animal, and his back was toward her.
She watched breathlessly until he turned. And then she stared hard at him, noting the steady, cold, alert eyes; the firm lips; the bigness of him, the atmosphere of capableness that seemed to surround him; the low-swung guns at his hips, with no flaps on the holster-tops, and the bottoms of the holsters tied to his leather chaps with rawhide thongs.
Never had she seen a man like him. For some reason, as yet inexplicable to her, he brought into her troubled consciousness a feeling of cold calm, a refreshing influence that might be compared to the sweep of a cool and unexpected breeze in the middle of a hot day.
He dominated the group of men that instantly surrounded him; and the dominance was not of attire, for he was arrayed like the others. She saw Deveny standing near him, and the man Laskar behind Deveny and Sheriff Gage and several other men. And she saw Rogers and Lawson as they walked slowly toward him.
And then a realization of her loss, of the tragedy that had descended upon her, again assailed her; and afury of intolerance against inaction seized her. She could not stay in this room and suffer the hideous uncertainty; she could not take Rogers’ word that her father had been killed. There must be some mistake. Perhaps Rogers knew she was at the window, listening, and he had said that just to spite her. For she had discouraged Rogers’ advances as she had discouraged Deveny’s.
Breathing fast, she unlocked the door and went out into the hall.
The man whom Deveny had placed to guard her was still lounging on the stair platform, and he grinned when he saw her.
“Comin’ to try ag’in?” he grinned.
She smiled—a disarming smile that brought a fatuous gleam into the man’s eyes, so that he permitted her to come close to him.
“Deveny’s got damn’ good judgment,” he said as she halted near him. “He knows a thoroughbred when he sees—Hell!”
The ejaculation came from his lips as Barbara leaped swiftly past him. He threw out a futile arm, and stood for an instant, shocked into inaction as Barbara ran down the stairs toward the street. Then the man leaped after her, cursing. She could hear him saying: “Damn your hide! Damn your hide!” as he came after her, his spurs jangling on the steps.
CHAPTER VICHAIN-LIGHTNING
Turning from Purgatory, after he had dismounted in front of the sheriff’s office, Harlan faced three men who stood just outside of the building, watching him.
The slightly humorous smile that curved Harlan’s lips might have betrayed his reason for dismounting in front of the sheriff’s office, for he had seen Laskar standing with the two other men. But no man could have told that he looked at Laskar directly, except Laskar himself, who would have sworn that Harlan did not remove his gaze from him, once he had slipped from Purgatory’s back.
For Harlan’s eyes told nothing. They seemed to be gazing at nothing, and at everything. For Gage, watching the man, was certain Harlan was looking directly at him as he grinned, and Deveny, like Laskar, was sure Harlan’s gaze was upon him. And all of them, noting one another’s embarrassment, stood silent, marveling.
And now Deveny discovered that Harlan was watching the three of them together—a trick which is accomplished by fixing the gaze upon some object straight in front of one; in this case it was Deveny’s collar—and then including other objects on each side of the center object.
Steady nerves and an inflexible will are required tokeep the gaze unwavering, and a complete absence of self-consciousness. Thus Deveny knew he was standing in the presence of a man whose poise and self-control were marvelous; and he knew, too, that Harlan would be aware of the slightest move made by either of the three; more, he could detect any sign of concerted action.
And concerted action was what Deveny and Laskar and the sheriff had planned. And they had purposely dragged Laskar outside, expecting Harlan would do just as he had done, and as his eyes warned he intended to do.
“I’m after you, Laskar,” he said softly.
Laskar stiffened. He made no move, keeping his hands at his sides, where they had been all the time that had elapsed since Harlan had dismounted.
Laskar’s eyes moved quickly, with an inquiring flash in them, toward Deveny and the sheriff. It was time for Deveny and the sheriff to precipitate the action they had agreed upon.
But the sheriff did not move. Nor did Deveny change his position. A queer, cold chill had come over Deveny—a vague dread, a dragging reluctance—an indecision that startled him and made of his thoughts an odd jumble of half-formed impulses that seemed to die before they could become definite.
He had faced gun-fighters before, and had felt no fear of them. But something kept drumming into his ears at this instant with irritating insistence that this was not an ordinary man; that standing before him, within three paces, his eyes swimming in an unfixedvacuity which indicated preparation for violent action, was Harlan—“Drag” Harlan, the Pardo two-gun man; Harlan, who had never been beaten in a gunfight.
Could he—Deveny—beat him? Could he, now, with “Drag” Harlan watching the three of them, could he draw with any hope of success, with the hope of beating the other’s lightning hand on the downward flash to life or death?
Deveny paled; he was afraid to take the chance. His eyes wavered from Harlan’s; he cast a furtive glance at the sheriff.
Harlan caught the glance, smiled mirthlessly and spoke shortly to Laskar:
“I told you to keep hittin’ the breeze till there wasn’t any more breeze,” he said. “I ought to have bored you out there by the red rock. I gave you your chance. Flash your gun!”
“Harlan!”
This was Gage. His voice sounded as though it had been forced out: it was hoarse and hollow.
Harlan did not move, nor did his eyes waver. There was feeling in them now: intense, savage, cold. And his voice snapped.
“You’re the sheriff, eh? You want to gas, I reckon. Do it quick before this coyote goes for his gun.”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “You’re under arrest, Harlan, for killin’ Lane Morgan out there in the desert yesterday.”
Harlan’s eyes narrowed, his lips wreathed into a feline smile. But he did not change his position.
“Who’s the witness against me?”
“Laskar.”
“Has he testified?”
“He’s goin’ to.”
Harlan backed away a little. His grin was tiger-like, a yellow flame seemed to leap in his eyes. Laskar, realizing at last that he could hope for no assistance from Gage or Deveny, grew rigid with desperation.
Death was in front of him; he knew it. Death or a deathless fame. The fates had willed one or the other, and he chose to take the gambler’s chance, the chance he and Dolver and the Chief had refused Lane Morgan.
Deathless fame, the respect and the admiration of every man in the section was his if he beat “Drag” Harlan to the draw. Forever afterward, if he beat Harlan, he would be pointed at as the man who had met the Pardo gunman on even terms and had downed him.
He stepped out a little, away from the front of the building, edging off from Deveny and Gage so that Harlan would have to watch in two directions.
Lawson and Rogers, having advanced to a position within a dozen paces of the group in front of the sheriff’s office, now backed away, silent, watchful. Other men who had been standing near were on the move instantly. Some dove into convenient doorways, others withdrew to a little distance down the street. But all intently watched as Laskar showed by his actions that he intended to accept his chance.
Deveny, too, watched intently. He kept his gaze fixed upon Harlan, not even glancing toward Laskar. For Deveny’s fear had gone, now that the dread presence had centered its attention elsewhere, and he was determined to discover the secret of Harlan’s hesitating “draw,” the curious movement that had given the man his sobriquet, “Drag.” The discovery of that secret might mean much to him in the future; it might even mean life to him if Harlan decided to remain in the section.
Harlan had made no hostile movement as yet. He still stood where he had stood all along, except for the slight backward step he had taken before Laskar began to move. But he watched Laskar as the latter edged away from the other men, and when he saw Laskar’s eyes widen with the thought that precedes action, with the gleam that reflects the command the brain transmutes to the muscles, his right hand flashed downward toward the hip.
With a grunt, for Harlan had almost anticipated his thoughts, Laskar’s right hand swept toward the butt of his pistol.
But Harlan’s hand had come to a poise, just above the stock of his weapon—a pause so infinitesimal that it was merely a suggestion of a pause.
It was enough, however, to throw Laskar off his mental balance, and as he drew his weapon he glanced at Harlan’s holster.
A dozen men who watched swore afterward that Laskar drew his gun first; that it was in his hand when Harlan’s bullet struck him. But Deveny knewbetter; he knew that Laskar was dead on his feet before the muzzle of his weapon had cleared the holster, and that the shot he had fired had been the result of involuntary muscular action; that he had pulled the trigger after Harlan’s bullet struck him, and while his gun had been loosening in his hand.
For Deveny had seen the bullet from Laskar’s gun throw up sand at Harlan’s feet after Harlan’s weapon had sent its death to meet Laskar. And Deveny had discovered the secret of Harlan’s “draw.” The pause was a trick, of course, to disconcert an adversary. But the lightning flash of Harlan’s hand to his gun-butt was no trick. It was sheer rapidity, his hand moving so fast that the eye could not follow.
And Deveny could get no pleasure from his discovery. Harlan had waited until Laskar’s fingers were wrapped around the stock of his pistol before he had drawn his own, and therefore in the minds of those who had witnessed the shooting, Harlan had been justified.
Sheriff Gage thought so, too. For, after Laskar’s body had been carried away, Harlan stepped to where the sheriff stood and spoke shortly:
“You wantin’ me for this?”
Sheriff Gage shook his head. “I reckon everybody saw Laskar go for his gun. There was nocallfor him to go for his gun. If you’d have shot him without him reachin’ for it things would have been different.”
Harlan said coldly, “I’m ready for that trial, now.”
The sheriff’s eyes glowed with some secret significance as they met Harlan’s. He was standing at alittle distance from Deveny, and he deliberately closed an eye at Harlan.
“Trial—hell!” he declared, “you’ve destroyed the evidence.”
Harlan wheeled, to see Deveny standing near. And for an instant as their eyes met—Harlan’s level and cold, Deveny’s aflame with a hostility unmistakable—the crowd which had witnessed the shooting of Laskar again became motionless, while a silence, portending further violence, descended over the street.
Then Deveny abruptly wheeled and began to walk across to the First Chance.
He had not taken many steps, however, when there were sounds of commotion farther down the street toward the Eating-House—a man cursing and a girl screaming.
Deveny halted and faced the point from which the sounds came, and a scowl appeared on his face.
Harlan wheeled, also. And he saw, at a little distance down the street, a girl running, her hair tossing in a mass around her, her eyes wild with fright and terror. Behind her came a man, cursing as he ran.
Harlan heard Sheriff Gage curse, too—heard him say:
“That’s Lane Morgan’s daughter—Barbara! What in hell is she doin’ here?”
The girl, not more than a dozen feet ahead of her pursuer, ran straight toward Harlan. And when—as she drew closer and he saw that she was, indeed, actually coming toward him—her eyes on him as though she had singled him out as a protector—headvanced toward her, drawing one of his guns as he went.
And, grinning as she neared him, he opened his arms wide and she ran straight into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing, and talking incoherently. While Harlan, his grin fading as he looked at her pursuer—who had halted within half a dozen paces of the girl—commanded lowly:
“You’re runnin’ plumb into a heap of trouble, mister man. Throw your rope around the snubbin’ post. Then get on your hind legs an’ do some explainin’. What you chasin’ this girl for?”
The man reddened, looked downward, then up at Deveny. The latter, a pout on his lips, his eyes glowing savagely, walked to where Harlan stood with one arm around the girl, while Lawson, Rogers, Gage, and several other men advanced slowly and stood near him.