A hundred yards from the Manzanita House was a corral and in it a score of young horses were being held to await shipment. In the course of his ambling, Bruce came to this bunch of animals and leaned against the bars, poking a hand through and snapping his thumb encouragingly as the ponies crowded against the far side and eyed him with suspicion. He talked to them a time, then climbed the fence and perched on the top pole, snapping his fingers and making coaxing sounds in futile effort to tempt the horses to come to him; and all the time his mind was back at the Circle A, wondering what had transpired under his roof, in his room, that day.
Nora's voice startled him when it sounded so close behind, for he had not heard her approach.
"Why, you scart me bad!" he said, with a laugh, letting himself down beside her. "What you doin' out to-night?"
He pinched her cheek with his old familiarity, but under the duress of his own thinking did not notice that she failed to respond in any way to his pretended mood.
"I thought I'd like to walk a little an' get th' air," she said. "An' ... tell you that I'm goin' away."
"Away, Nora?"
"Yes, I'm goin' to Prescott, Bruce."
He lifted his hat and scratched his ear and moved beside her as she started walking along the road, now a dim tape under the mountain stars.
"Why, Nora, I thought you was a fixture here; what'll we do without you?"
He did not know how that hurt her, how the thought that hecoulddo without her hung about her heart like a sodden weight. She covered it well, holding her voice steady, restraining the discouragement that wanted to break into words, and the night kept secret with her the pallor of her face.
"I guess you'll get along, Bruce; you done it before I come an' I guess th' town'll keep on prosperin' after I leave. I ... I got a chance to go into business."
"Why, that's fine, Sister."
"A lunch counter that I can get for two hundred; I've saved more 'n that since ... since I come here. That'll be better than workin' for somebody else an' I figure I'll make as much and maybe considerable more."
"That's fine!" he repeated. "Fine, Nora!"
In spite of the complexity of his thinking he found an interval of respite and was truly glad for her.
"I ... I wanted to tell you before anybody else knew, 'cause I ... Well, you made it possible. If you hadn't done this for me ... this here in Yavapai ... I'd never been ..."
He laughed at her.
"Oh, yes you would, Nora. You had it in you. If I hadn't happened along some one else would. What we're goin' to be, we're goin' to be, I figure. I was only a lucky chance."
"Lucky," she repeated. "Lucky! God, Bruce, lucky for me!"
"Naw, lucky for me, Nora. Why, don't you know that every man likes to have some woman dependin' on him? It's in us to want some female woman lookin' to us for protection an' help. It tickled me to death to think I was helpin' you, when, all the time, I knew down in my heart, I was only an accident.''
"You can say that, Bruce, but you can't make me believe it."
They walked far, talking of the past, of her future, but not once did the conversation touch on Ann Lytton. Bayard kept away from it because of that privacy with which he had come to look on the affair, and the girl knew that his presence there in town after Ann's departure for the ranch could mean only that a crisis had been reached. With her woman's heart, her intuition, she was confident of what the outcome would be. And though she had given her all to help bring it about, she knew that the sound of it in speech would precipitate that self-revelation which she had avoided so long, at such cost.
"I'll see you again," she said, when they stood before the hotel and she was ready to enter for the night. "I'll see you again before I go, Bruce. And—I ... thank you ... thank you...."
She gripped his hand convulsively and lowered her head; then turned and ran quickly up the steps, for she would not let him see the emotion, nor let him hear uncertain words form on her lips.
In her last speech with him, Nora had lied; she had lied because she knew that to tell him she had packed her trunk and would leave on the morning train would bring thanks from him for what she had done for Ann Lytton; and Nora could not have stood this. From the man downstairs she had learned kindness, had learned that not all mistakes are sins, had learned that there is a judgment above that which denounces or commends by rule of thumb. He had set in her heart a desire to be possessed by him, had fed it unconsciously, had led her on and on to dream and plan; then, had unwittingly wrecked it. But he had made her too big, too fine, too gentle, to let jealousy control her for long. She had weakened just once, and that had served to set in Nora's heart a new resolve, a finer purpose than had ever found a place there before. And, as she stumbled up the narrow stairway, the tears scalding her cheeks, her soul was glad, was light, was happy, for she knew true greatness.
Bayard roamed until after midnight; then went to his room in the hotel and slept brokenly until dawn. In those hours he chilled with fear and experienced flushes of temper, but behind it all he was resigned, willing to wait. He had done his all, he had held himself strictly within the bounds of justice as he conceived it, and beyond that he could do no more.
The east had only commenced to silver when he rode out of town at a brisk gallop. He did not realize what going back to his ranch meant until he was actually on his way and then with every length of the road traveled, his apprehensions rose. It was no business of his he argued, what had transpired the day before; it was Ann's affair ... and her husband's. Yet, if he had left her alone, unprotected, and Lytton had done her harm, he knew that he could never escape reproaching himself, and his suffering would be in proportion to hers. Then, of the many, there was another disturbing possibility. Perhaps a complete reconciliation had followed. Perhaps he would ride into his dooryard to find Ann Lytton cooking breakfast for her husband, smiling and happy, refusing to meet his gaze, ashamed of what had been between them.
He prodded his pony to greater speed with that thought.
The sun was not yet up when he pulled his swift-breathing horse to a stop. The outer gate stood open, and, as he rode through, his face clouded slightly with annoyance over the unusual occurrence, but when he looked to the horse corral and saw that it, too, was open, and empty, that Abe was gone, his annoyance became fear. He spurred the tired pony across the yard and flung off before the house with eyes on that portion of the kitchen which was visible through the door. Then, stopped, stood still, and listened.
Not a sound except the breathing of his horse. The breeze had not yet come up, no animal life was moving. An uncanny sense of desertion was upon the place and for a moment Bayard knew real panic. What if some violence....
"Lytton!" he called, cutting his half-formed, horrible thought short, and stepped into the room.
No answer greeted him and, after listening a moment, he again shouted. Then walked swiftly to the room where Ned Lytton had lived through those weeks. He knocked, waited, flung open the door and grunted at the emptiness which he found. One more room remained to be inspected—his room—and he turned to the door which was almost closed. He rapped lightly on the casing; louder, called for Lytton, grasped the knob and entered.
The overturned table, broken lamp, the spreading stain of its oil, the rumpled rugs yielded their mute suggestion, and he moved slowly about, eyeing them, searching for other evidence, searching for something more than the fact that a struggle had taken place, hoping to find it, fearing to know.
He stopped suddenly, holding his head to one side as though listening to catch a distant sound.
"Both saddle horses gone ... they're gone," he muttered to himself and started from the room on a run.
He inspected the saddle rack under his wagonshed and saw that the third saddle was missing, and then, with expert eyes, studied the ground for evidence.
A trail, barely discernible in the multitude of hoof-marks, led through to the outer gate, crossed the road and struck straight east across the valley.
"That's Abe," he said excitedly to himself. "That was made late yesterday."
He stood erect and looked into the far reaches of the lower valley where the wreaths of mists in the hollows were turning to silver and those without shelter becoming dispelled as the sun spread its first warmth over the country.
"You've stolen my horse!" he said aloud, and evenly, as though he were dispassionately charging some one before him with the misdeed. "You stole my horse, but she ... was your woman!"
He straightened and lifted his head, moving it quickly from side to side as he strove to identify a moving object far below him that had risen suddenly into sight on one of the valley swells and disappeared again in a wash. It was a horse, he knew, but whether it was a roamer of the range or a beast bearing a rider, he could not tell. He waited anxiously for its reappearance, again hoping and fearing.
"Huh! You're carryin' nobody," he muttered aloud as the speck again came into view. "An' you sure are goin' some particular place!"
The animal was too far distant to be readily identified but about its swing was a familiar something and, inspired by an idea, Bayard returned to the house, emerged with a field glass and focused it on the approaching horse. The animal was his sorrel stallion.
"Come on, Abe," he said aloud, putting down the binoculars with a hand that trembled. "They've sent you on home, or you've got away.... But how about th' party you carried off?"
He walked to the gate and stood uneasily awaiting the arrival of the animal. As the sorrel came into sight from the nearest wash into which he had disappeared he was moving at a deliberate trot, but when he made out the figure of his waiting master he strode swifter, finally breaking into a gallop and approaching at great speed, whinnering from time to time.
The bridle reins were knotted securely about the horn. He had not escaped; Abe had been sent home. He stopped before Bruce and nuzzled the man's hands as they caressed his hot, soft nose.
"It looks as if they had trouble before they left, from th' way my room is," the man said to the horse as he stroked his nose, "but I know right well he'd never got you out of that corral alone an' never got you off in that direction unless somebody'd helped him; she might make you mind 'cause she rode you once. If it wasn't for that ... I'd think she'd been forced ... 'cause they must have had a racket...."
He led the horse through the gate and into the corral. There, he slipped the bridle off, uncinched and dragged the saddle toward him. As the polished, darkened seat turned to the bright sunlight, he saw that the leather had been defaced and, indignation mounting, he leaned over to inspect it. The resentment departed, a mingling of fear and triumph and rage rose within him, for on the saddle had been scratched in hasty, crude characters:
BOUND FOR MINEHELP
BOUND FOR MINEHELP
No need to speculate as to the author of that message on the saddle. That Ann had been forced by circumstances to do the work furtively was as evident. And the combination of facts which rode uppermost in his confused mentality was this. Ann Lytton was being taken to the Sunset mine against her will; she had appealed to him for aid and, because of that, he knew that she had chosen between the two, between her husband and her honorable lover!
For a moment, mad, hot triumph filled him. He had done his best with the ruin of a man he had set out to reconstruct; he had groomed him well, conscientiously, giving him thorough care, great consideration, just to satisfy his own moral sense; he had given him back to Ann at the cost of intense suffering ... and it had not been enough for her; she was not satisfied. Beside her husband, bound for her husband's mountain home, she had found herself in her hour of need and had cried out to him for help!
Bruce calculated swiftly as he stood there. Lytton's trail from the ranch led straight eastward, toward the Sunset group. They had not ridden the whole forty-five miles at one stretch. He was satisfied of that. Obviously, they had stopped for the night and out in that country toward which they had started was only one ranch that would not take them miles out of their course. That was the home of Hi Boyd, a dozen miles straight east, six miles south and east from Yavapai, thirty-three miles from the Sunset group. By now they were making on, they could finish their journey before night....
And then recurred a thought that Bruce had overlooked in those moments of speculation, of quick thinking:
"Good God, Benny Lynch's waitin' for him ... with murder in his heart!" he cried aloud, the horror at the remembrance so sharp, the meaning of this new factor in the situation so portentous, that the words came from his lips unconsciously. He stood beside the horse, staring down at the message on the saddle again, bewildered, a feeling of helplessness coming over him.
"I can't let that happen, Abe, I can't!" he said. "I drove him there.... He must have gone because ... He's found out she was here all along ... he's blamed it on me.... He's crazy mad an' he's ridin' straight to his end!... It would free her, but I can't let it happen ... not that way ...
"It's up to you to get me to town," he cried as he reached for the bridle. "Just to Yavapai ... that's all.... You're th' best horse in th' southwest, but they've got too much of a start on you. We'll try automobiles this once, Pardner!"
In an incredibly short time the saddle was on, cinch tight. He gathered the reins, called to the sorrel and Abe, infected with his excitement, wheeled for the gate, the man running by his side. As the animal rounded into the road, Bruce vaulted into the saddle, pawed with his right foot for the flopping stirrup and leaning low on Abe's neck, shouted into his ears for speed.
Merely minutes transpired in that eight-mile race to Yavapai. Bayard's idea was to hire the one automobile of which the town boasted, start down the valley road that Lytton and Ann must follow to reach the mine, overtake and turn them back, somehow, on some pretext. He could arrange the device later; he could think of the significance of Ann's appeal to him when the man between them was free from the danger of which Bayard was aware; his whole thought now was to beat time, to reach town with the least possible waste of seconds. The steel sinews, the leather lungs, the great heart of the beast under him responded nobly to this need. They stormed along the wagon tracks when they held straight, thundered through the unmarked grass and over rocks when the highway turned and twisted. Once, when they ran through a shallow wash and Abe climbed the far side with a scramble, fire shot from his shoes and Bruce cried,
"You're th' stallion shod with fire, boy!"
It was a splendid, unfaltering run, and, when the rider swung down before the little corrugated iron building that housed Yavapai's motor car, the stallion was black with water and his breath came and went with the gasps of fatigue and nervous tension.
Bruce turned from his horse and stepped toward the open door of the garage. A man was there, behind the car, looking dolefully down at an array of grease covered parts that littered the floor.
"Jimmy, I want you to take me out on th' Valley road this mornin'. How soon can we get away?"
"It won't be this mornin' or this afternoon, Bruce," the man said, with a shake of his head. "I've got a busted differential."
"Can't it be fixed?"—misgiving in his voice.
"Not here. I have to send to Prescott for a new one. I'll be laid up a couple of days anyhow."
Bayard did not answer. Just stood trying to face the situation calmly, trying to figure his handicap.
"Is it awful important, Bruce?" the man asked, struck by the cowman's attitude.
"I guess th' end of th' world's more important,"—as he turned away, "but to me, an' compared to this, it's a small sized accident."
He walked slowly out into the street and paused to look calculatingly at Abe. Then, turning abruptly, struck by a new possibility, he ran across to the Manzanita House, entered the door, strode into the office, took down the telephone receiver and rattled the hook impatiently.
"I want Hi Boyd's ranch," he said to the operator. Then, after a wait in which he shifted from foot to foot and swore under his breath: "Hello ... Boyd's? Is this Hi Boyd? It is? ... Well Hi, this is Bruce Bayard an' I've got to have a horse from you this mornin'...."
"A horse!" came the thin, distant exclamation over the wire. "Everybody wants horses off me today...."
"But I'vegotto have one, Hi! It's mighty important. Yours is th' only ranch that's on my way—"
"... an' we let one get away this mornin'," the voice went on, not pausing for Bruce's insistence, "'fore daylight an' left a lady who spent th' night with us a foot. We had to go catch up another for 'em an' Lytton—Ned Lytton, was th' man—only got on two hours ago ... three hours late! No, they ain't a horse on th' place that'll ride."
"Can't you catch one for me?" Bruce persisted.
"How? Run him down on foot? If I was a young man like you, I might, but now...."
Bayard slammed up the receiver and turned away, staring at the floor. He walked into the street again, looking about almost wildly. One by one the agencies that might prevent the impending catastrophe out yonder had been rendered helpless. The automobile, the chance of getting a change horse, his haste in riding to Yavapai and its consequent inroads made upon Abe's strength.
"I'm playin' with a stacked deck!" he muttered, as he approached the stallion. "There ain't another horse in this country equal to you even after your mornin's work," he said, looking at the breathing, sweat darkened creature. "I wouldn't ask you to do it for anybody else, Boy. But ... won't you do it for her? She sent for me. Will you take me back? It'll mean a lot to her, let alone what it means to me ... if I don't stop him.
"It's thirty-five miles for us to make while they're doin' little more 'n twenty, for they've been traveling since dawn. Maybe it'll be your last run ... It may break your heart.... How about it?"
In his desperation, something boyish came into his tone, his manner, and he appealed to his horse as he would have pleaded with another human being. The sorrel looked at him inquiringly, great intelligent eyes unblinking, ears forward with attentiveness and, after a moment, the white patch on his nose twitched and he moved closer against his master as he gave a low little nicker.
"Is that your answer, Abe? Are you sayin' yes?" Bayard asked, and unbuckled his chap belt. "Is it, old timer? You're ... it's all up to you!" He kicked out of his chaps, flung them to the hotel porch, mounted, reined the stallion about and high in the stirrups, a live, flexible weight, rode out of town at a slow trot, holding the horse to the gait that the wind which blew in from the big expanse of country might cool him.
Benny Lynch was at work in the face of the Sunset's lower tunnel. He swung his singlejack swiftly, surely, regularly, and each time it struck the drill, his breath whistled through his lips in the manner of mine workers. His candle, its stick secure in a crack above him, lighted the small chamber and under its uncertain, inefficient rays, his face seemed drawn and hard and old.
A fortnight ago, when he rode to the Circle A ranch to share with Bayard the secret that harassed him his countenance had been merely sober, troubled; but now it gave evidence of a severe strain that had endured long enough to wear down his stolidity—the tension that would naturally come to a man who is normally kind and gentle and who, by those same qualities, is driven to hunt a fellow human as he would plot to take the life of a dangerous animal. Through those two weeks he had been waiting alone in the mining camp, working eight hours each day, doing his cooking and housework methodically, regularly, telling himself that he had settled down to the routine of industriously developing property that was rightfully his, when that occupation was only a ruse, a blind, when he was waiting there solely for the opportunity to kill! His watching had not been patient; it was outwardly deliberate, true, but inwardly it kept him in a continual state of ferment; witness the lines about his mouth, the pallor of his skin, the feverish, expectant look in his eyes.
On a spike in the timbering hung an alarm clock ... and a gun belt, weighted with revolver and ammunition. At regular, frequent intervals, the blows of his jack were checked and he sat crouched there, head forward and a trifle to one side, as though he were listening. When no sound save the singing of his candle wick reached his ears, he went on, regularly, evenly, purposeful. Possibly the tension that showed about his mouth became more noticeable after each of these brief periods when he strained to catch sounds.
With a final blow Benny left off the rhythmic swing, wiped his forehead with a wrist, poured water from a small tin bucket into the hole on which he was at work and picked up his jack to resume the swinging. He glanced at the clock.
"It's time," he said aloud, his voice reverberating hollowly in the place.
He put down his hammer quickly and rose from his squatting position as though he had neglected to perform some important duty. He took down the gun belt, slung it about his waist, and, making a reflector of his hollowed hand for the candle, started out along the tunnel, walking swiftly, intent on a definite end. When he reached the point where the darkness of the drift was dissipated by the white sunlight, he extinguished his feeble torch, jabbed the candlestick into the hanging-wall and reached for a pair of binoculars that, in their worn and battered case, hung from the timbering.
"This is 'n elegant day," he said aloud, as he walked out on to the dump, manipulating the focusing screw of the glass and looking cautiously around at the pine clad mountains which stretched away to right, left and behind him.
Evidently his mind was not on his words or on the idea; he was merely keeping up his game of pretense, while beneath the surface he was alert, expectant. Near the foot of the pile of waste rock was the log cabin with its red, iron roof and protruding stove pipe. Far below him and running outward like a great tinted carpet spread Manzanita Valley. Close in to the base of the hills on which he stood a range of bald, flat-topped, miniature buttes made, from his eminence, a low welt in its contour, but beyond that and except for an occasional island of knee-high oak brush it seemed to be without mar or blemish. Here and there patches of deeper color showed and the experienced eye knew that there the country swelled or was cut by washes, but, otherwise, it all seemed to be flat, unbroken.
On this immense stretch of country Benny trained the glass. His manner was intent, resolute. Each hour during daylight he had been making that observation for a fortnight; every time he had anticipated reward, action. Aided by the lenses he picked out the low buttes, saw a spot that he knew was a grazing horse, a distant shimmering blotch of mellow white canopied by a golden aura that meant sheep, turned his body from left to right in swift, sweeping inspection.
And stopped all movement with a jerk, while an inarticulate exclamation came from him.
For the first time his sight had encountered that for which he had been seeking. He was motionless an instant, then lowered the glass to his chest-level and stared hard with naked eyes. He wet his lips with his tongue and strained forward, used the glasses again, shifted his footing, looking about with a show of bright nervousness, and rubbed the lenses on his shirt briskly.
"He ain't even waitin' to take th' road," he said aloud. "He's in a powerful hurry!"
Once more the instrument picked out the moving dot under that vast dome of brilliant blue sky and, for a lengthy interval Benny held his aided gaze upon it, watching it disappear and come into sight again, ever holding toward him through wash and over swells, maintaining its steady crawling. He moved further out on the dump to obtain a better view and leaned against the rusty ore car on its track that he might be steadier; for sight of that purposeful life down yonder had started ever so slight tremors through his stalwart limbs.
He muttered to himself, and again looked alertly about, right and left and behind. His eye was brighter, harder. When he looked into the valley again, sweeping its expanse to find the horseman who had momentarily disappeared, he stood with gaze fixed in quite another direction and, when he had suppressed his breath an instant to make absolutely certain, he cried excitedly:
"In bunches! They're comin' in droves!"
He put down the binocular, took the six-gun from its holster, twirled the cylinder briskly and caressed the trigger with an eager finger. His mouth had become a tight, straight line and his brows were gathered slightly, as in perplexity. He breathed audibly as he watched those indications of human life on the valley. He knew then the greatest torment of suspense....
Ten minutes later, when the near dot had become easily discernible to the naked eye, when the figure of horse and rider was in sharp detail through the glass, the ominous quality about the man gave way to frank mystification. He flung one leg over the corner of the ore car, and his face ceased to reflect his great determination, became puzzled, half alarmed.
"That's Bruce's stallion, if I ever seen him!" he thought, "An' he's been run to th' last breath."
The horse went out of sight, entered the timber below Benny and the clicking of stones, the sounds of shod hoofs floundering over bare rocks gave evidence that he would be at the mine level in another five minutes. The man hitched his gun belt about, took one more anxious, puzzled look down into the valley where other figures moved, and walked down the trail toward the cabin slowly, watching through the pines for sight of the climbing animal.
A man came first, bent over that he might climb faster up the steep trail. He was leading a horse that was drenched from ear to ankle, lathered about neck and shoulder and flank, who breathed in short, low sobs, and stepped with the uneven awkwardness of utter fatigue. Benny stopped as he recognized Bayard and Abe and his right hand which had rested lightly on the gun butt at his hip dropped to his thigh. He stood still, waiting for them to come nearer, wondering anxiously what this might mean, for he knew that the owner of the sorrel stallion would never have ridden him to that condition without cause.
Bayard looked up, saw the man waiting for him and halted between strides, the one foot far advanced before the other. His face was white and he stared hard at the miner, studying him closely, dreading to ask the question that was at his lips. But after that momentary pause he blurted out,
"Is everything all right, Benny?"
And Lynch, shaken by Bruce's appearance, the manner of his arrival, countered:
"What's wrong? What is it?"—walking swiftly down the trail toward the newcomer.
"Has anybody been here before me, to-day?"
"Nobody, Bruce. What is it?"—anxiously, feeling somehow that they were both in danger.
"Thank God for that!" Bayard muttered, some of the intensity going from him, and turned to loose the cinch. "We weren't too late, Abe, we weren't." He dragged the saddle from the stallion's dripping back, flung it on the rocks behind him, pulled off the bridle and with hands that were not steady, stroked the lathered withers as the horse stood with head hung and let the breath sob and wheeze down his long throat while his limbs trembled under his weight. "We've come from town in th' most awful ride a horse ever made on this valley, Benny. Look at him! I had to ask him, I had to ask him to do this, to run his heart out for me; I had to do it!"
He stood looking at his horse and for the moment seemed to be wholly absorbed in contemplating the animal's condition; his voice had been uncertain as he pleaded the vague necessity for such a run.
"What is it, Bruce? Why was you in such a hurry?" Lynch asked, taking the cowman gently by the arm, turning him so that they confronted one another, an uneasy connection forming in his mind between his friend's dramatic arrival and his own purpose at the mine.
"Ned Lytton an' his wife are comin' here to-day, Benny,"—bluntly. "I had to get here before them to stop you ... doin' what you've come here an' waited to do."
The other's hand dropped from Bruce's arm; in Benny's face the look of fear, of doubt, gave way to a return of the strained, tense expression with its dogged determination. That was it! The woman, identified as such through his glass, was Lytton's wife! He felt the nerves tightening at the back of his neck.
"What do you mean by that ... to stop me?" he asked, spreading his feet, arms akimbo, a growing defiance about him.
"What I said, Benny. I've come to stop a killin' here to-day. I thank God I was in time!"
His old assurance, his poise, which had been missing on his arrival, had returned and he stepped forward, reaching out a hand to rest on Benny's shoulder, gripping through the flannel shirt with his long, stout fingers.
"You told me your trouble with Lytton in confidence. I thought once this mornin' maybe I'd have to break that confidence. I thought when I started up this trail that I must be too late to do any good, but now I'm here I know you'll understand, old timer, I know you'll understand!"
He shook Lynch gently with his hand and smiled, but no responsive light came from the miner's eyes in return; hostility was there, along with the fever of waiting.
"No, I don't understand," he said, sharply. "I don't understand why you're throwin' in with that scum."
"Don't think that! It's not for him I'm doin' this. I wouldn't ask my Abe to run himself sick forhim! It's for my own peace of mind an' yours, Benny."
"My mind'll be at peace when I've squared my dad's account with Lytton an' not before!"—with a significant gesture toward his gun.
"But mine won't, an' neither will yours when you know that by comin' to me with your story you tied me hand an' foot! Hand an' foot, Benny, that's what! I've never been helpless before, but I am this time; if Lytton comes to any harm from you here to-day, his blood'll be on my hands. I know he's a snake, I know he knifed your daddy in th' back,"—growing more intense, talking faster, "But he's wrong, Benny, wrong in th' head. A man can't get so lowdown as he is an' not be wrong.
"Oh, I know him. I know him better than you or anybody else does! I've been nursin' him for weeks. He's been at my ranch—"
"At your—"
"Yes, at my ranch. I took him there a month ago, Benny, to make a man of him for his wife, the sweetest woman that God ever made live to make us men better. I've been groomin' him up for her, workin' with him, hatin' him, but doin' my best to make a man of him. Now, he's bringin' her here by force because of me, an' she sent back for me ... asked me to help her. She knows there's danger here. I didn't tell her why, but I told her that much, told her never to let him come back. Now he's forcin' her to come with him an' she sent for me.
"Don't you see? I can't let you shoot him down! Can't you see that, Benny?"
He shook him again and leaned forward, face close to face.
"No, I don't see that it makes any difference," Lynch said slowly, a hard calm covering his roused emotions.
Bayard drew back a step and a quick flush swept into his cheeks.
"But I sent him here, Benny; knowin' you were waitin'. It's my fault if he—"
"You sent him?"
"Yes, I drove him out here! He might never have come back, if it hadn't been for me. I ... Nobody else knows this, Benny; maybe nobody ever will but you, but I've got to make you understand. He ... She ... His wife's been in town a month. She come out here to throw herself away on that rat, when she don't ... when she hates him.
"I can't tell you all of it, but yesterday he saw her for th' first time.
"He must have raised hell with her ... because of me, because I've known she was out here and didn't tell him. He took her away an' she ... sent for me....
"Don't you see that I'm to blame? Hell, it's no use hidin' it; he took her off to get her away from me! He's bringin' her here, th' nearest place to a home he's got. If 't wasn't for me, he wouldn't have started for this place; he'd stayed there. Don't you see, Benny, that I'm drivin' him into your hands. You may be justified in killin', but I ain't justified ... in helpin' you!"
"If it's that way ... between she an' you ... you'd ought to be glad....'
"Not that way!" Bayard exclaimed. "Not that, Benny! He's everything you've called him, but I can't foul him. I've got to be more'n square with him because he is ... her husband an' because she did ... send for me!"
For a moment the miner seemed to waver; a different look appeared in his eyes, an appreciation for the absolute openness of this man before him, his great sense of fair play, his honesty, his sincerity. Then, he remembered that minutes had been consumed, that his game was drawing to a climax.
"I can't help it," he said, doggedly, drawing back, "We understand each other now, Bruce, an' my advice to you is to clear out. Things'll happen right soon."
"What do you mean?" slowly, with incredulity.
"Don't you know they wasn't a mile behind you, on th' other side of them low bluffs?"
Bayard half turned, sharply, as though he expected to find Ann and Lytton directly behind him on the trail.
"God, no!" he answered in a hushed tone. "Rough country, that's why I didn't see 'em."
"Well, that's them ... a man an' woman. They ought to be here any minute."
Lynch's voice sank to a whisper on the last and he drew the gun from its scabbard, peering down the trail, listening. On sight of the colt, a flicker came into Bayard's eyes, his jaw tightened, his shoulders squared themselves.
"I'll go down an' meet him," the miner said quite calmly, though the color had gone even from his lips. "It's ..."
With a drive of his hand, Bayard's fingers fastened on the gun and the jerk he gave the weapon tore Lynch from his footing.
"You'll not, Benny!"—in a whisper, securing the gun, and flinging it into the brush behind him, gripping the other man by his shirt front, "You won't, by God, if I have to choke you black in the face!"
Lynch drew back against the cabin wall, struggling to free himself.
"It's my fight, Bruce!" ... breathing in gasps, eyes wide, voice strained almost to the point of sobbing.
"I'll let go when you promise me to go into your house an' sit there an' keep quiet until I finish my work ... or, until you're molested."
"Not after two years! Not after my dad...."
Tears stood in the miner's eyes and he struck out viciously with his fists; then Bayard, thrusting his head forward, flung out his arms in a clinging, binding embrace and they went down on the trail, a tangle of limbs. Benny was no match in such a combat and in a trice he was on his face, arms held behind him and Bayard was lashing his wrists together with his bridle reins.
"Stand up!" he said, sharply, when he had finished.
He picked up the revolver and, with a hand under one of the bound arms, helped Benny to his feet.
"I'll apologize later. I'll do anything. I came out here to prevent a killin', Benny, an' my work ain't done yet."
The miner cursed him in a strained voice and the come and go of his breath was swift and irregular. He trembled violently. All the brooding he had experienced in the last months, all the strain of waiting he had known in the recent days, the conviction that his hour of accomplishment was at hand, and the sudden, overwhelming sense of physical helplessness that was now on him combined to render his anger that of a child. He attempted to hold back, but Bayard jerked him forward and, half dragged, half carried, he entered the kitchen of the cabin he had helped build, which had been stolen from him and which was now to be his prison at the moment when he had planned to make his title to the property good by killing....
Bayard, too, trembled, and his gray eyes glittered. He breathed through his lips and was conscious that his mouth was very dry. His movements were feverish and he handled Lynch as though he were so much insensate matter.
Benny protested volubly, shouting and screaming and kicking, trying to resist with all his bodily force, but Bruce did not seem to hear him. He handled his captive with a peculiar abstraction in spite of the fact that they struggled constantly.
Bayard kicked a chair away from the table, forced Lynch into it and holding him fast with one arm, drew the dangling bridle reins through the spindles of the back and lashed the miner's bound wrists there securely.
"I can't help it, Benny," he said, hurriedly and earnestly, as he straightened. "You and I ... we'll have this out afterwards.... Your gun ... I'll leave it here,"—putting the weapon on top of a battered cupboard that stood against the wall behind Benny.
"I'm goin' down to turn him back towards town, Benny.... I won't give you away; he won't know you're here, but I've got to do it myself. I can't let you kill him to-day.... I can't, because I'm to blame for his comin' here!"
He was gone then, with a thudding of boots and a ringing of spurs as he ran from the room, struck into the trail and went down among the pines at a pace which threatened a nasty fall at every stride. And Benny, left alone, whimpered aloud and tugged ineffectually at the knots which held him captive in his chair. After a short interval, he stopped the struggling and strained forward to listen. No sound reached his ears except the low, sweet, throaty tweeting of quail as they ran swiftly over the rocks, under a clump of brush and disappeared. The world was very quiet and peaceful ... only in the man's heart was storm....
Bayard ran on down the trail toward the edge of the timber where he might look out on the valley and see those two riders he had followed and passed without seeing. He had no plan. He would tell Lytton to go back, wouldmakehim go back, with nothing but his will and his naked hands. He wanted to laugh as he ran, for his relief was great; there was to be no killing that day, no blood was to be on his conscience, no tragedy was to stand between him and the woman who had called for aid.
His pace became reckless, for the descent was steep and, when he emerged from the timber, his whole attention was centered on keeping himself upright and overcoming his momentum. When he could stop, he lifted his eyes to the country below him, searched quickly for the figures of Ned and his wife and swore in perplexity. He did not see sign of a moving creature. He knew that there was no depression in that part of the valley deep enough to hide them from him as he stood on that vantage point. Had Lynch been mistaken? Had he deceived him artfully?
He looked about bewildered, wholly at a loss to explain the situation. Then ran on, searching the trail for indication of passing horses. They could not have turned back and ridden from sight in the short time that had elapsed since Benny saw them ... if he had seen them. Where could they go, but on to the mine?
The worn trail still led him down grade, though the pitch was not so severe as it had been higher up; however, he did not realize the distance he was from timber when he came upon fresh horse tracks. They had ridden up to that point at a walk; they had stopped there, and when they went on they had swerved to the right and ridden for the hills with horses at a gallop.
Bayard read the tell-tale signs in an instant, wheeled, looked up at the abrupt slopes above him and cried,
"He's gone around for some reason ... in a hurry.... To come into camp from behind!"
And trembling at thought of what might be happening back there in the cabin, he started up the trail, running laboriously against the steep rise of the hill.
Bayard had guessed rightly. After miles of silent riding Lytton had pulled his horse up with a jerk, had laid a hand on Ann's bridle and checked her pony with another wrench.
"Who's that?" he growled, staring at Bayard.
She had looked at the distant horse, floundering up the slope beyond them, recognized both Abe and his rider and had turned to stare at her husband with fear in her eyes.
"Who is it?" he demanded again, and she dropped her gaze.
"So that's it!" he jeered. "Your lover is trying to play two games. He's come to beat us to it, has he?"—he licked his lips nervously. "Well, we'll see!"
He hung his spurs in and fanned her horse with his quirt and, still clinging to her bridle, led his wife at a high lope off to the right, swinging behind a shoulder of the hill and climbing up a sharp, wooded draw.
"I'll fool your friend!" he laughed, twenty minutes later when they had climbed a steep ridge and the winded horses had dropped into a walk. "I'll fool him!"
He drew Bayard's automatic, which he had taken from Ann, and looked it over in crafty anticipation.
Ann, after her night and her day of hardship, of ceaseless anxiety, could not cry out. A sound started but went dry and dead in her throat. She sat lax in her saddle, worn and confused and suddenly indifferent. She had been defiant yesterday afternoon for a time; she had been frightened later; with cunning she had scratched her warning on Abe's saddle and with like strategy she had managed to set the great horse free when they were preparing for their early morning start from the Boyd ranch. She had withstood her husband's taunts flung at her through their sleepless night, she had taken in silence his abuse when it became necessary to secure another horse; beside him she had ridden in silence down the valley, knowing him for a crazed man. And now sight of Bayard, the sense of relief that his nearness brought, the sudden fear for his safety at seeing the pistol, reduced her to helplessness.
"You wait here," she heard her husband say.
He followed the order with a threat of some sort, a threat against her life she afterward remembered, dismounted and walked away. At the time his departure left no impression on her. She sat limp in her saddle a long interval, then leaned forward and, face in her horse's mane, gave way to sobbing. The vent for that emotion was relief; how long she cried she did not know, but suddenly she found herself on the ground, looking about, alive to the fact that the silence seemed like that of death.
Cautiously, Lytton crept up over the rocks after he left Ann. His movements gave no hint of his recent weakness; they were quick and jerky, but certain. His lids were narrowed and between them his eyes showed balefully. He held his weapon in his right hand, slightly elevated, ready to shoot. Moisture formed on his forehead and ran down over his cheeks. Now and then his gun hand trembled spasmodically and then he halted until it was firm again.
He knew these rocks well and took no chances of exposing himself. He slunk from tree to boulder and from boulder to brush, always making nearer camp, always ready for an emergency. He attained a point where he could look down on the cabin below him and stood there a long time, half crouched, poised, scanning every corner, every shadow. The corral was hidden from him and Abe, lying under a spreading juniper tree, was out of his range of vision. He listened as he watched but no sound came to him. Then he went on, down the ragged way.
At intervals of every few feet he halted and listened, repressing even his own breath that he might hear the slightest sound. But no movement, no vibration disturbed that crystal noontime until he had gone halfway to the red-roofed house below the dump. Then a bird fluttered from close beside him: a soft, abrupt, diminishing whirr of wings and the man shrank back against the rock, lifting his gun hand high, breath hissing as it slipped out between his teeth, the craven in him shaking his limbs, gripping his throat. Discovery of what had startled him brought only slow relief, and minutes elapsed before he straightened and laughed silently to shame his nerves to steadiness.
A stone, loosened by his foot, rolled down before him to the next ledge, rattling as it went, and he squatted quickly, again afraid, yet alert. For he felt that noise emanating from his movements would precipitate developments. But nothing moved, no new sounds came to him.
He was not certain that Bayard had seen them out on the valley. He did not know of his wife's message for help; in his confused consciousness he had supposed that the cowman had ridden to the mine on some covetous errand and that Bruce was ignorant of the fact that he and Ann had left the Circle A. He did not even stop to remember that Bayard had come into sight and disappeared through the timber on Abe, and that the stallion had slipped away from them before dawn. He had leaped to the conclusion that Bruce would be in the log house down yonder or somewhere about the property. So he stalked on, lips dry and hot with the desire to kill....
Lytton approached to within ten yards of the cabin without hearing more sounds. There he straightened to his toes and stretched his neck to look about, peering over the tops of oak brush that flourished in the scant soil, and, as he reached his full height, the sharp sound of a chair scraping on the floor sent him to a wilting, quivering squat, caused his breath to come in gasps, made his hands sweat until the pistol he held was slippery with their moisture. His head roared with excitement, but through it he thought he heard the sound of a man's voice lifted in speech.
No window was visible to him from his position. The back door of the kitchen stood open, he could see, but his view of the room through it was negligible. At the other end of the room was a door and a window, but he dared not risk advance from that direction. He crouched there, panting, fearing, yet planning quickly, driven to desperation by the urge of the hate which rankled in him. Bruce Bayard had attempted to steal his wife, he repeated to himself, he had attempted to frighten him away from his other property, his mine, and he was roused to a pitch of nervous excitement that carried him beyond the caution of mental balance and yet did not stimulate him to the abandon of actual madness. He wanted Bayard's life with all the lust that can be stirred in men by an outraging of the sense of possession and the passion of jealousy ... beyond which there can be no destroying desire.
No other sounds came from the house, but he was satisfied that the man waiting within was his man and he skulked from the brush, choosing his footing with care, treading on the balls of his feet, preventing the stiff branches from slapping noisily together by his cautious left hand. Slow, cat-like in his movements, he covered the distance to the cabin, flinging out an arm on the last step as though he were falling and with it steadying himself against the log wall of the building, where he balanced a moment, becoming steady.
He strained to listen and caught sounds of a man's breath expelled in grunts. The doorway was not six feet from the place where he had halted and he eyed it calculatingly, noting the footing he must cross, licking his lips, eyes strained wide open. He took the first step forward and halted, hand against the wall still to maintain his balance; then on again, lifting the foot slowly, setting it down with great pains, putting his weight on it carefully....
And then nervous tension snapped. He could no longer hold himself back and with a lunge he reached the door, gripped the casing with his left hand and, crouching, swung himself into the doorway, pistol extended before him, coming to a halt with an inarticulate, sobbing cry that might have been hate or chagrin or only fright.... For the man he covered with that weapon was a stranger, an individual he had never seen before, sitting in a chair, back to him, his pale, startled face turned over the near shoulder, giving the intruder frightened gaze for frightened gaze.
For a moment Lytton remained swaying in the doorway, bewildered, unable to think. Then, he saw that the other man was bound to his chair, his hands behind him, and he let go his hold on the casing, straightened and put one foot over the threshold. He spoke the first words,
"Who are you?"—in a tone just above a whisper, leaning forward, sensing in a measure an explanation of this situation. And because of this intuitive flash of comprehension, he did not give the other opportunity to answer his first question, but said quickly, lowly, "What are you doing here?"
Benny looked at him, studying, a covered craftiness coming into his face to obliterate the anxiety, the rebelliousness that had been there. His semi-hysteria was gone, his cold, hard determination to carry his mission to its conclusion had reasserted itself but covered, this time, by cunning. He realized what had happened, knew that Lytton had expected to find another there, he saw that he was ready to kill on sight, and in the situation the miner read a way out for himself, a method of attaining his own ends. So he said,
"I'm takin' a little rest; can't you see?"—ironical in his answer to Lytton's question, impatient when he put his own counter query.
He wrenched at the bonds angrily and, partly from the exertion, partly from the rage that rose within him, his face colored darkly.
Lytton stepped further into the room, approaching Lynch's chair, looking closely into his face, gun hand half lowered.
"Who tied you up?" he asked in a whisper, for his mind was centered about a single idea; the probable presence of Bayard and his relation to this man who was some one's prisoner.
Benny looked down at the floor and leaned over and again tugged at the knots for he dared not reveal his face as he growled,
"A damn dirty cowpunch!"
The other man said nothing; waited, obviously for more information.
"His name's Bayard," Benny muttered.
He rendered the impression that he regarded that specific information as of no consequence, but he heard the catch of a sound in Lytton's throat and saw him shift his footing nervously.
"How long ago?" he asked.
"Too damn long to sit here like this!"—in anger that was not simulated, for with every word that passed between them, Benny felt his reason slipping, felt that if this situation continued long enough he must rise with the chair bound fast to him and try to do harm to this other man.
"Where'd he go?"
Lytton bent low as he whispered excitedly and his gun hand hung loosely at his side.
Benny shook his head.
"I dunno," he said. "He went off some'res, but he won't be gone long, that's a good bet! He was up to somethin'—God knows what. Guess he thought I'd spoil it."
He looked up and saw the glitter of Lytton's eyes.
"Up to something is he?" Lytton laughed, dryly, repeating Lynch's words. "Up to something! He's always up to something. He's been up to something for weeks, the wife stealing whelp ... and now if I know what I'm talking about, he's upagainstsomething!"
"Wife stealer, is he?" Benny laughed as he put that question and was satisfied when he saw Ned's jaw muscles bulge. "That's his latest, is it?"
Lytton looked at him pointedly.
"You know him pretty well, too?" he asked.
"Know him! Do I know him? Look at this!"—with a slight lift of his bound hands. "That's how much I know him.... I seem to have a fair enough acquaintance, don't I?
"Say,hombre, you turn me loose an' set here an' I'll pack him in to you ... on my back ... if you're lookin' for him that way!"
Lytton looked quickly about; then stood still to listen; the silence was not broken and he stared back at the bound man, a new interest in his face, as he framed his hasty diplomacy.
"Do you mean you've ... got a fight with this man? With Bayard?"
Benny moved from side to side in his chair and forced a laugh.
"Have I?" he scoffed. "Have I? You just wait until I get loose an' get my fingers onhim. You'll think it's a fight, party.... But I'm in a fine way to do anythin' now!"
He looked through the front doorway, out down the sharp draw that the trail to the valley followed. Lytton stepped nearer to him and as he spoke his voice became eager and rapid,
"I've a quarrel with him, too!" The craven in him drove him forward to this newly offered hope, the hope of finding an ally, some one to share his burden of responsibility, some one he could hide behind, some one, perhaps, who might be inveigled into doing his fighting for him. "I came here to hunt him down. When I came down that hill there,"—gesturing—"I thought he was in here because I heard your chair move on the floor. When I jumped through that door and covered you, I expected he'd be here and that I'd ... Well, that I'd square accounts with him for good....
"I don't know what your fight with him is, but he's abused you; he's got you hogtied now. That you've a fight of some sort with him is enough for me.... Aren't two heads better than one?"—insinuatingly.
The miner forced himself to meet that inquiring gaze steadily, but his expression of delight, of triumph, which came into his face was not forced, was not counterfeit, and he growled quickly:
"I don't need any man's help in my fight ... when I got an even chance. My troubles are my own an' I'll tend to 'em, but, if you want to do me a favor, you'll cut these damn straps ... you'll give me a chance to fight, man to man!"
He did not lie with those words; his inference might have been deception but that chance to fight man to man was the dearest privilege he could have been offered.
No primitive urge to punish with his own hands a man who had crossed him made itself paramount with Lytton; he wanted Bayard to suffer, but the means did not matter. If he could cause him injury and avoid the consequence of personal accountability, so much the better, and it was with a grunt of relief and triumph that he shoved the automatic into the waist band of his pants, drew a knife from his pocket and grasped the tightly knotted straps.
"You bet, I'll help anybody against that dirty—
"Sit still!" he broke off, as Benny, quivering with excitement, strained forward. "I'm likely to cut you if—"
The blade slashed through the leather. Lynch floundered to his feet, free, alone in the room with the man he had deliberately planned to kill, and the overwhelming sense of impending achievement swept all caution from him.
He stumbled a step or two forward after the suddenly parting of the straps set him free and then turned about to face Lytton, who stood beside the chair closing his knife. Behind the Easterner was the cupboard on which Bayard had placed Benny's gun, and the miner's first idea should have been to restrain himself, to keep on playing a strategic game, to move carefully, deliberately until he was armed and could safely show his hand.
But such control was an impossibility. He faced Ned Lytton who stood there with an evil smile on his lips, and all the love for his dead father, all the outraged sense of property rights, all the brooding, the waiting, the accumulated tension caused something in him to swell until he felt a choking sensation, until the hate came into his face, until he drew his clenched fists upward and shook his head and bellowed and charged, madly, blindly, wanting only to have his hands on his enemy, to take his life as the first men took the lives of those who had done them wrong! The feel of perishing flesh in his palms ... that was what he wanted!
With a shrill cry of fright, Lytton saw what happened. He saw the change come over the face, the body, the manner of this man before him, saw Lynch gather himself for the rush and, whipping his hand down to his stomach as he backed and tried to run, he clutched for the weapon that would defend him from this new foe.
But the hand did not close on the pistol butt then. His wrist was caught in the clamp of incredibly powerful fingers that bound about it and wrenched it backward; the other hand was pinned to his side by an encircling arm and the breath was beaten from him as Lynch's impact sent them crashing into the wall.
"You will, will you?" Benny snarled thickly. "Cheat an' steal an' ... lie."
They strained so for a moment, faces close together, the eyes of the miner glittering hate, those of Lytton reflecting the mounting fear, that possessed him.
"Who are you?" he screamed. "You ... you snake!"
"I'm Lynch ... Lynch! Son of an old man you cheated an' killed!" Benny shouted. "I've waited for years for this.... 'T was Bayard, th' man you hunted, tied me up so I couldn't ... kill you. But you ... walked into your own trap...."
"You sna—"
Lytton's word was cut off by the jerk the miner gave him, dragging him to the center of the floor, bending him backward, struggling to hold him with one hand and secure the pistol with the other. Ned screamed again and drew his knee up with a vigorous snap, jamming it into Benny's stomach, sending the breath moaning from him. For the following moment Lytton held the upper hand but Lynch clung to him instinctively, unthinkingly, wrapping his arms and legs about Ned's body with a determination to save himself until he could beat down the sickness that threatened to overwhelm him. He did hold on, but his grip had lost some of its strength and, when his vision cleared and his mind became agile again, he felt Lytton's hand between their bodies, knew that it had fastened on the weapon it had been seeking. He rallied his every force to overcome that handicap.
Ned's gun hand came free and he flung himself sideways in an effort to turn and yank himself from Lynch, but the miner closed on him, caught the forearm again in a mighty clamp of fingers and swept him smashing against the one window of the room. The glass went out with a crash and a jingle and the tough, dry wood of the frame snapped with a succession of sharp reports. Blood gushed down Lytton's cheek where a jagged pane had scratched the flesh as it fell and Lynch was conscious that warm moisture spread over his own upper left arm.
The Easterner braced against the window sill and grunted and squirmed until he forced his adversary back a body's breadth.... Then he kicked sharply, viciously and his boot toe crunched on Lynch's shin, sending a paralyzing pain through the limb. They swirled and staggered to the far end of the room in their struggles, the one bent on holding the other's body close to his to controvert its ceaseless efforts to worm away; and above their heads was the gun, gripped by fingers that were in turn clinched in a huge, calloused palm and rendered helpless.
"You snake!" Lytton cried again, and flung his head up sharply, catching Lynch under the chin with a sharp click of bone on bone.
They poised an instant at that, lurched clumsily against the stove and sent it toppling from its legs while the pipe sections rattled hollowly down about them, and a cloud of soot rose to fill their eyes. They lunged into the wall again and hung against it a long, straining moment, breathless in their efforts; then, grunting as Lytton wriggled violently to escape, Benny steadily tightened his hold on him.
Intervals of dogged waiting followed, after which came frantic contortions as they lost and gathered strength again. Lytton's face was covered with blood and some of it smeared on Lynch's cheek. Sweat made their flesh glisten and then became mud as the soot mantled them. Occasionally one called out in a curse, or in an exclamation of pain, but much of the time their jaws were set, their lips tight, for both knew that this fight was to the end; that their battle could finish in but one of two ways.
Each time they faced the cupboard Benny shot a glance at its top. His gun was there; to reach it was his first hope, but he dared not relinquish for a fractional second his dogged grip on the other man's hand.
Lytton renewed his efforts, kicking and bunting. They waltzed awkwardly across the floor on a diagonal and Benny, backing swiftly on to the overturned chair to which he had been bound, tripped and lost his balance again. They went down with mingled cries, Lytton on top. For an instant he retained the position and threatened to break away, but Benny rolled over, hooking the other's limbs to helplessness with his own. He withdrew his right arm from about Lytton's waist and grappled for the man's throat while Ned writhed and kicked, flung his head from side to side and struck desperately with his own free fist against the throttling fingers. He loosed one leg and threshed it frantically, found a bearing point against the wrecked stove, bowed his body with a wracking effort and for an instant was out from under, restrained only by the hot, hard fingers about his gun hand. He strove to reach up and transfer the pistol to his left, but Benny was the quicker and they rose to their feet, scrambling and snarling as they sought fresh holds.
Lynch had the advantage of weight but Lytton's agility offset the handicap. His muscles might not be able to endure so long a strain, but they responded more quickly to his thoughts, took lightninglike advantage of any opportunity offered. The fact enraged Benny and, giving way to it, he called on his precious reserve of energy for a super effort, lifted Ned from his feet and spun about as though he would dash his body against the wall. But Ned met this new move with the strength of the frenzied, and, when they had made three-quarters of the turn, Lynch was overbalanced; he stumbled, lurched and with a crash and a rip they went against the battered old cupboard.
The jolt steadied the men, but the big fixture, rocking slowly, went over sideways with a smash of breaking dishes and a rattling, banging of pans. And from its top, spinning and sliding across the cluttered floor, went Benny's big blue Colt gun.
Both men saw at once and on sight of that other weapon their battle became reversed. Lynch, glassy eyed, struggled to extricate himself now, to retain his hold on Lytton's hand that held the automatic, but to free his other, to stoop and recover his own revolver. Ned understood fully on the first move. He wrenched repeatedly to gain use of the automatic, but he clung with arms and legs and teeth to Lynch ... wherever he could find purchase. He succeeded at first in working the fight back into a corner away from the revolver, but his strength was not lasting.
Benny redoubled his efforts and slowly they shifted again toward the center of the room where the reflected sunlight made the blue metal of the Colt glisten as it lay in the wreckage. They both breathed aloud now and Lytton moaned at each acute effort he made to meet and check his enemy's moves. With painful slowness, with ominous steadiness, they made back toward Lynch's objective, inch by inch, zigzagging across the floor, hesitating, swaying backward, but always keeping on. The violence of their earlier struggle had departed; they were more deliberate, more cautious, but the equality of their ability had gone. Lytton was yielding.
Benny got to within four feet of the revolver, gained another hand's breadth by a strain that set the veins of his forehead into purple welts. He bent sideways, forcing Ned's right hand with its pistol slowly down toward the floor. Then, with a slip and a scramble, Lytton left off his restraining hold, flung himself backward, spun his body about and with a cry of desperation put every iota of energy into an attempt to wrest his right hand from Benny's clutch.
Lynch let him go, but with a motive; for as he released his grip, he swung his right fist mightily, following it with the whole weight of his falling body. The blow caught Lytton on the back of the neck, staggered him, sent him pitching sideways toward the doorway and as Lynch, pouncing to the floor on hands and knees, fastened his fingers on his gun, Ned flashed a look over his shoulder, saw, knew that he could never turn and fire in time, and plunged on through the doorway, falling face downward into the dust, rolling over and fronting about ... out of the miner's sight ... pistol covering the door and broken window where Benny must appear ... if he were to appear.
And the miner, within the ruined room, knees bent, torso doubled forward, gun in his hand, cocked, uplifted, waited for some sound, some indication from out there. None came and he straightened slowly, backing against the wall, wiping the sweat from his eyes one at a time that his vigilance might not be relaxed, gun ready to belch the instant Lytton should show himself ... if he were to show himself.
So they watched, hidden from one another, each knowing that his enemy waited only for him to make a move, each aware that he could not bring the other into range without exposing himself. After the bang and clatter of their hand to hand struggle, the silence was oppressive, and Benny, head turned to catch the slightest sound, thought that he could hear the quick come and go of Lytton's breath.
The man inside quivered with impatience; the one who waited in that white sunlight cowered and paled as the flush of exertion ebbed from his daubed face. Benny, whose whole purpose in life centered about squaring his account, as he saw it, with the man outside yearned to show himself, but held back, not through fear of harm, but because he knew that the fulfillment of his mission depended wholly upon his own bodily welfare. Lytton, quailing before the actual presence of great danger, of meeting a foe on equal footing, of fighting without resort to surprise or fouling, wanted to be away, to be quit of the place at any cost. He would have run for it, but he knew that the sounds of his movements would bring Lynch on his heels. He would have attempted to get away by stealth but he feared that he might encounter Bayard in any direction. He did not stop to think that he had no reason for fearing the cowman; his very guilt, his subconscious disrespect of self, made him regard an open meeting with Bruce as one of danger.
So for many minutes, the tension of the situation becoming greater, more unbearable with each pulse beat.
Then sounds—faint at first. The rattle of a stone rolling over rock, the distant swish of brush. A silent interval, followed by the sound of a gasping cough; then, the faint, clear ring of a spur as the boot to which it was strapped set itself firmly on solid footing.
Within the house Lynch could not hear, but Lytton, alert to every possibility, dreading even the sound of his own breathing, turned his head sharply....
There, below, making up the trail as fast as his exhausted limbs could carry him, came Bruce Bayard, hat in one hand, arms swinging widely as he strained to climb faster. He turned an angle of the trail and for the space of thirty yards the way led across a ledge of smooth, flat rock, screened by no trees and bearing no vegetation whatever.
Fear again retreated from Lytton's heart before a fresh rush of wrath that blinded him and made him heedless. He whirled, leaving off his watching of the cabin door and window. His gun hand came up, slowly, carefully, while he gritted his teeth to steady his muscles. He sighted with care, bringing all his knowledge of marksmanship to bear that there should be no error, that no possible luck of Bayard's should avail him anything....
And from above and behind the cabin rose a woman's voice:
"Look out, Bruce!"
Just those words, but the bell-like quality of the voice itself, the horror in its shrill tone carrying sharply to them, echoing and re-echoing down the gulch, struck a chill to the hearts of three men.
The words had not left Ann's lips before the automatic in Ned's hand leaped and flashed and the echo of the woman's warning cry was followed by the smashing reverberations of the shot. But her scream had availed; it had sent a tremor through Lytton's body even as he fired, and, as Bayard halted abruptly in the center of the open space without barrier before him or weapon with which to answer, absolutely at Lytton's mercy, his hat was torn from his left hand.
"You whelp!" Ned cried, and on the word took one more step forward, halted, dropped the weapon on its mark again and paused for the merest fraction of time. His muscles became plastic, as steady as stone under the strain of this crisis. He did not hear the quick step on the kitchen floor, he could not see Benny Lynch half fall through the doorway, but when the miner's gun, held stiffly out from his hip, roared and belched and remained steady, ready to shoot again, Ned lowered the weapon just a trifle.
A queer, strained grin came over his face and, standing erect, he turned his head stiffly, jerkily toward Benny who stood crouched and waiting. Then, very slowly, almost languidly, his gun hand lowered itself. When it was almost beside his thigh, the fingers opened and the pistol dropped with a light thud to the earth. Ned lifted the other hand to his chest and still grinning, as if a joke had been made at his expense which quite embarrassed him, he let his knees bend as though he would kneel. He did not follow out the movement. He wilted and fell. He tried to sit up, feebly, impotently. Then, he lay back with a quick sigh.