Carrington was not a coward; he was not even a cautious man. And the bitter malice that filled his heart, together with riotous impulses that seethed in his brain prompted him to go straight to the Arrow, wreak vengeance upon Taylor and drag Marion Harlan back to the big house he had bought for her.
But a certain memory of Taylor’s face when the latter had been pursuing him through the big house; a knowledge of Taylor’s ability to inflict punishment, together with a divination that Taylor would not hesitate to kill him should there arise the slightest opportunity—all these considerations served to deter Carrington from undertaking any rash action.
Taylor’s opposition to his desires enraged Carrington. He had met and conquered many men—and he had coolly and deliberately robbed many others, himself standing secure and immune behind legal barriers. And he had seen his victims writhe and squirm and struggle in the meshes he had prepared for them. He had heard them rave and wail and threaten; but not one of them had attempted to inflict physical punishment upon him.
Taylor, however, was of the fighting type. On two occasions, now, Carrington had been given convincing proof of the man’s ability. And he had seen in Taylor’s eyes on the latest occasion the implacable gleam of iron resolution and—when Taylor had gone down, fighting to the last, in the sanguinary battle at the big house, he had not failed to note the indomitability of the man—the tenacious and dogged spirit that knows no defeat—a spirit that would not be denied.
And so, though Carrington’s desires would have led him to recklessly carry the fight to the Arrow, certain dragging qualms of reluctance dissuaded him from another meeting with Taylor on equal terms.
And yet the malevolent passions that gripped the big man would not tolerate the thought of opposition. Taylor was the only man who stood between him and his desires, and Taylor must be removed.
During the days of Carrington’s confinement to his rooms above the Castle—awaiting the slow healing of the wound Taylor had inflicted upon him, and the many bruises that marred his face—mementoes of the terrible punishment Taylor had inflicted upon him—the big man nursed his venomous thoughts and laid plans for revenge upon his enemy.
As soon as he was able to appear in Dawes—to undergo without humiliation the inspection of his face by the citizens of the town—for news of his punishmenthad been whispered broadcast—he boarded a westbound train.
He got off at Nogel, a little mining town sitting at the base of some foothills in the Sangre de Christo Range, some miles from Dawes.
He spent three days in Nogel, interrogating the resident manager of the “Larry’s Luck” mine, talking with miners and storekeepers and quizzing men in saloons—and at the beginning of the fourth day he returned to Dawes.
At about the time Miss Harlan and Taylor were sitting on the rock on the bank of the river near the Arrow, Carrington was in the courthouse at Dawes, leaning over Judge Littlefield’s desk. A tall, sleek-looking man of middle age, with a cold, steady eye and a smooth smile, stood near Carrington. The man was neatly attired, and looked like a prosperous mine-owner or operator.
But had the judge looked sharply at his hands when he gripped the one that was held out to him when Carrington introduced the man; or had he been a physiognomist of average ability, he could not have failed to note the smooth softness of the man’s hands and the gleam of guile and cunning swimming deep in his eyes.
But the judge noted none of those things. He had caught the man’s name—Mint Morton—and instantly afterward all his senses became centered upon what the man was saying.
For the man spoke of conscience—and the judge had one of his own—a guilty one. So he listened attentively while the man talked.
The thing had been bothering the man for some months—or from the time it happened, he said. And he had come to make a confession.
He was a miner, having a claim near Nogel. He knew Quinton Taylor, and he had known Larry Harlan. One morning after leaving his mine on a trip to Nogel for supplies, he had passed close to the “Larry’s Luck” mine. Being on good terms with the partners, he had thought of visiting them. Approaching the mine on foot—having left his horse at a little distance—he heard Taylor and Harlan quarreling. He had no opportunity to interfere, for just as he came upon the men he saw Taylor knock Harlan down with a blow of his fist. And while Harlan lay unconscious on the ground Taylor had struck him on the head with a rock.
Morton had not revealed himself, then, fearing Taylor would attack him. He had concealed himself, and had seen Taylor, apparently remorseful, trying to revive Harlan. These efforts proving futile, Taylor had rigged up a drag, placed Harlan on it, and had taken him to Nogel. But Harlan died on the way.
To Littlefield’s inquiry as to why Morton had not reported the murder instantly, the man replied that, being a friend to Taylor, he had been reluctant to expose him.
After the man concluded his story the judge and Carrington exchanged glances. There was a vindictively triumphant gleam in Littlefield’s eyes, for he still remembered the humiliation he had endured at Taylor’s hands.
He took Morton’s deposition, told him he would send for him, later; and dismissed him. Carrington, appearing to be much astonished over the man’s confession, accompanied him to the station, where he watched him board the train that would take him back to Nogel.
And on the platform of one of the coaches, Carrington, grinning wickedly, gave the man a number of yellow-backed treasury notes.
“You think I won’t have to come back—to testify against him?” asked the man, smiling coldly.
“Certainly not!” declared Carrington. “You’ve signed his death warrant this time!”
Carrington watched the train glide westward, and then returned to the courthouse. He found the judge sitting at his desk, gazing meditatively at the floor. For there had been something insincere in Morton’s manner—his story of the murder had not been quite convincing—and in spite of his resentment against Taylor the judge did not desire to add anything to the burden already carried by his conscience.
Carrington grinned maliciously as he halted at Littlefield’s side and laid a hand on the other’s arm.
“We’ve got him, Littlefield!” he said. “Get busy.Issue a warrant for his arrest. I’ll have Danforth send you some men to serve as deputies—twenty of them, if you think it necessary!”
The judge cleared his throat and looked with shifting eyes at the other.
“Look here, Carrington,” he said, “I—I have some doubts about the sincerity of that man Morton. I’d like to postpone action in this case until I can make an investigation. It seems to me that—that Taylor, for all his—er—seeming viciousness, is not the kind of man to kill his partner. I’d like to delay just a little, to——”
“And let Taylor get wind of the thing—and escape. Not by a damned sight! One man’s word is as good as another’s in this country; and it’s your duty as a judge of the court, here, to act upon any complaint. You issue the warrant. I’ll get Keats to serve it. He’ll bring Taylor here, and you can legally examine him. That’s merely justice!”
Half an hour later, Carrington was handing the warrant to a big, rough-looking man with an habitual and cruel droop to the corners of his mouth.
“You’d better take some men with you, Keats,” suggested Carrington. “He’ll fight, most likely,” he grinned, evilly. “Understand,” he added; “if you should have to kill Taylor bringing him in, there would be no inquiry made. And—” he looked at Keats and grinned, slowly and deliberately closing an eye.
Neil Norton had been attending to Taylor’s affairs in Dawes during the latter’s illness, and he had ridden to the Arrow this morning to discuss with Taylor a letter he had received—for Taylor—from a Denver cattle buyer. The inquiry was for Herefords of certain markings and quality, and Norton could give the buyer no information. So Norton had come to Taylor for the information.
“The herd is grazing in the Kelso Basin,” Taylor told Norton. Norton knew the Kelso Basin was at least fifteen miles distant from the Arrow ranchhouse—a deep, wide valley directly west, watered by the same river that flowed near the Arrow ranchhouse.
“I can’t say, offhand, whether we’ve got what your Denver man wants.” He grinned at Norton, adding: “But it’s a fine morning for a ride, and I haven’t done much riding lately. I’ll go and take a look.”
“I’ll be looking, too,” declared Norton. “TheEagleforms are ready for the press, and there isn’t much to do.”
Later, Taylor, mounted on Spotted Tail, and Norton on a big, rangy sorrel, the two men rode away. Taylorstopped at the horse corral gate long enough to tell Bud Hemmingway, who was replacing a bar, that he and Norton were riding to the Kelso Basin.
And there was one other to whom he had spoken—when he had gone into the house to buckle on his cartridge-belt and pistols, just before he went out to saddle Spotted Tail. It was the girl who had tantalized him while they had been sitting on the rock. She had not spoken frivolously to him inside the house; instead, she had gravely warned him to be “careful;” that his wounds might bother him on a long ride—and that she didn’t want him to suffer a relapse. And she watched him as he and Norton rode away, following the dust-cloud that enveloped them until it vanished into the mists of distance. Then she turned from the door with a sigh, thinking of the fate that had made her dependent upon the charity of the man she loved.
To Bud Hemmingway, working at the corral gate about an hour following the departure of Taylor and Norton, there came an insistent demand to look toward Dawes. It was merely one of those absurd impulses founded upon a whim provoked by self-manufactured presentiment—but Bud looked. What he saw caused him to stand erect and stare hard at the trail between Mullarky’s cabin and the Arrow—for about two miles out came a dozen or more riders, their horses traveling fast.
For several seconds Bud watched intently, straining hiseyes in an effort to distinguish something about the men that would make their identity clear. And then he dropped the hammer he had been working with and ran to the bunkhouse, where he put on his cartridge-belt and pistol.
Returning to the bunkhouse door, he stood in it for a time, watching the approaching men. Then he scowled, muttering:
“It’s that damned Keats an’ some of his bunch! What in hell are they wantin’ at the Arrow?”
Bud was standing near the edge of the front gallery when Keats and his men rode up. There were fourteen of the men, and, like their leader, they were ill-visaged, bepistoled.
Marion Harlan had heard the noise of their approach, and she had come to the front door. She stood in the opening, her gaze fixed inquiringly upon the riders, though chiefly upon Keats, whose manner proclaimed him the leader. He looked at Bud.
“Hello, Hemmingway!” he greeted, gruffly. “I take it the outfit ain’t in?”
“Workin’, Kelso,” returned Bud. Bud’s gaze at Keats was belligerent; he resented the presence of Keats and the men at the Arrow, for he had never liked Keats, and he knew the relations between the visitor and Taylor were strained almost to the point of open antagonism.
“What’s eatin’ you guys?” demanded Bud.
“Plenty!” stated Keats importantly. He turned to the men.
“Scatter!” he commanded; “an’ rustle him up, if he’s anywhere around! Hey!” he shouted at a slender, rat-faced individual. “You an’ Darbey search the house! Two more of you take a look at the bunkhouse—and the rest of you nose around the other buildin’s. Keep your eyes peeled, an’ if he goes to gettin’ fresh, plug him plenty!”
“Why, what is wrong?” demanded Marion. Her face was pale with indignation, for she resented the authoritative tone used by Keats as much as she resented the thought of the two men entering the house unbidden.
Keats’s face flamed with sudden passion. With a snap of his wrist he drew his gun and trained its muzzle on Bud.
“Wrong enough!” he snapped. He was looking at Bud while answering Miss Harlan’s question. “I’m after Squint Taylor, an’ I’m goin’ to get him—that’s all! An’ if you folks go to interferin’ it’ll be the worse for you!”
Marion stiffened and braced herself in the doorway, her eyes wide with dread and her lips parted to ask the question that Bud now spoke, his voice drawling slightly with sarcasm.
“Taylor, eh?” he said. “What you wantin’ with Taylor?”
“I’m wantin’ him for murderin’ Larry Harlan!” snapped Keats.
Bud gulped, drew a deep breath and went pale. He looked at Marion, and saw that the girl was terribly moved by Keats’s words. But neither the girl nor Bud spoke while Keats dismounted, crossed the porch, and stopped in front of the door, which was barred by the girl’s body.
“Get out of the way—I’m goin’ in!” ordered Keats.
The girl moved aside to let him pass, and as he crossed the threshold she asked, weakly:
“How do you—how do they know Mr. Taylor killed Larry Harlan?”
Keats turned on her, grinning mirthlessly.
“How do we know anything?” he jeered. “Evidence—that’s what—an’ plenty of it!”
Keats vanished inside, and Bud, his eyes snapping with the alert glances he threw around him, slowly backed away from the porch toward the stable. As he turned, after backing several feet, he saw Marion walk slowly to a rocker that stood on the porch, drop weakly into it and cover her face with her hands.
Gaining the stable, Bud worked fast; throwing a saddle and bridle upon King, the speediest horse in the Arrow outfit, excepting Spotted Tail.
With movements that he tried hard to make casual, but with an impatience that made his heart pound heavily,he got King out and led him to the rear of the stable.
Some of Keats’s men were running from one building to another; but he was not Taylor, and they seemed to pay no attention to him, beyond giving him sharp glances.
Passing behind the blacksmith-shop, Bud heard a voice saying:
“Dead or alive, Keats says; an’ they’d admire to have him dead. I heard Carrington tellin’ Keats!”
As the sound of the voice died away, Bud touched King’s flank with the spurs. The big horse, after a day in the stable, was impatient and eager for a run, and he swept past the scattered buildings of the ranch with long, swift leaps that took him out upon the plains before Keats could complete his search of the first floor of the house.
The two men who had searched the upper floor came downstairs, to meet Keats in the front room. They grimly shook their heads at Keats, and at his orders went outside to search with the other men.
Keats stepped to the door, saw Marion sitting limply in the rocking-chair, her shoulders convulsed with sobs, and crossed to her, shaking her with a brutal arm.
“Where’s that guy I left standin’ there? Where’s he—Hemmingway?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl dully.
Keats cursed and ran to the edge of the porch. Withhis gaze sweeping the buildings, the pasture, the corrals, and the wide stretch of plain westward, he stiffened, calling angrily to his men:
“There he goes—damn him! It’s that sneakin’ Bud Hemmingway, an’ he’s gone to tell Taylor we’re after him! He knows where Taylor is! Get your hosses!”
Forced to her feet by the intense activity that followed Keats’s loudly bellowed orders, the girl crossed the porch, and from a point near the end railing watched Keats and his men clamber into their saddles and race after Bud. For a long time she watched them—a tiny blot gliding over the plains, followed by a larger blot—and then she walked slowly to the rocking-chair, looked down at it as though its spaciousness invited her; then she turned from it, entered the house, and going to her room—where Martha was sleeping—began feverishly throwing her few belongings into the small handbag she had brought with her from the big house.
Looking back after he had been riding for some minutes, Bud saw a dozen or more horses break from the group of Arrow buildings and come racing toward him, spreading out fanwise.
“They’ve seen me!” breathed Bud, and he leaned over King’s shoulders and spoke to him. The animal responded with a burst of speed that brought a smile to Bud’s face. For the puncher knew that Taylor and Norton couldn’t have traveled more than a few miles in the short time that had passed since their departure; and he knew also that in a short run—of a dozen miles or so—there wasn’t a horse in the Dawes section that could catch King, barring, of course, Spotted Tail, the real king of range horses.
And so Bud bent eagerly to his work, not riding erect in the saddle as is the fashion of the experienced cow-puncher in an unfamiliar country, where pitfalls, breaks, draws, hidden gullies, and weed-grown barrancas provide hazards that might bring disaster. Bud knew this section of the country as well as he knew the interior of the bunkhouse, and with his knowledge came a confidencethat nothing would happen to him or King, except possibly a slip into a gopher hole.
And Bud kept scanning the country far enough ahead to keep King from running into a gopher town. He swung the animal wide in passing them—for he knew it was the habit of these denizens of the plains to extend their habitat—some venturesome and independent spirits straying far from the huddle and congestion of the multitude.
Bud looked back many times during the first two miles, and he saw that Keats and his men were losing ground; their horses could not keep the pace set by the big bay flier under Bud.
And King was not going as he could go when the necessity arrived. This ride was a frolic for the big bay, and yet Bud knew he must not force him, that he must conserve his wind, for if Taylor and Norton had yielded to a whim to hurry, even King would need all his speed and endurance to hang on. For the sorrel that had accompanied Spotted Tail was not so greatly inferior to King that the latter could take liberties with him.
Bud gloated as he looked back after he had covered another mile. Keats and his men were still losing ground, though they were not so very far back, either—Bud could almost see the faces of the men. But that, Bud knew, was due to the marvelous clarity of the atmosphere.
When the sides of the big hills surrounding the levelbegan to sweep inward rapidly, Bud knew that the grass level was coming to an end, and that presently he would strike a long stretch of broken country. Beyond that was a big valley, rich and fertile, in which, according to report, the Arrow herd should be grazing, guarded by the men of the outfit, under Bothwell. But Kelso Basin was still nine or ten miles distant, and Bud did not yet dare to let the big bay horse run his best.
Still, when they flashed by a huge promontory that stood sentinel-like above the waters of the river—a spot well remembered by Bud, because many times while on day duty he had lain prone on its top smoking and dreaming—King was running as lightly as a leaf before the hurricane.
King had entered the section of broken country, with its beds of rock and lava, and huge boulders strewn here and there, relics of gigantic upheavals when the earth was young; and Bud was skilfully directing King to the stretches of smooth level that he found here and there, when far ahead he saw Taylor and Norton.
In ten minutes he was within hailing distance, and he grinned widely when, hearing him, they pulled their horses to a halt and, wheeling, faced him.
For Bud saw that they had reached a spot which would make an admirable defensive position, should Taylor decide to resist Keats. The hills, in their gradual inward sweep, were close together, so that their crests seemed tonod to one another. And a little farther down, Bud knew, they formed a gorge, which still farther on merged into a cañon. It was an ideal position for a stand—if Taylor would stand and not run for it; and he rather thought Taylor would not run.
Taylor had ridden toward Bud, and was a hundred feet in advance of Norton when Bud pulled King to a halt, shouting:
“Keats and a dozen men are right behind me—a mile; mebbe two! He’s got a warrant for you, chargin’ you with murderin’ Larry Harlan! I heard one of his scum sayin’ it was to be a clean-up!”
Taylor laughed; he did not seem to be at all interested in Keats or his men, who at that instant were riding at a pace that was likely to kill their horses, should they be forced to maintain it.
“Who accused me of murdering Harlan?”
“Keats didn’t say. But I heard a guy sayin’ that Carrington was wantin’ Keats to take you dead!”
The cold gleam in Taylor’s eyes and the slight, stiff grin that wreathed his lips, indicated that he had determined that Keats would have to kill him before taking him.
“A dozen of them, eh?” he said, looking from Bud to Norton deliberately. “Well, that’s a bunch for three men to fight, but it isn’t enough to run from. We’ll stay here and have it out with them. That is,” he added witha quick, quizzical look at the two men, “if one of you is determined to stay.”
“One of us?” flared Bud. He gazed hard at Norton, with suspicion and belligerence in his glance. Norton flushed at the look. “I reckon we’ll both be in at the finish,” added Bud.
“Only one,” declared Taylor. “We might hold a dozen men off here for a good many hours. But if they were wise and patient they’d get us. One man will light out for Kelso Basin to get the outfit. Settle it between you, but be quick about it!”
Taylor swung down from his horse, led the animal out of sight behind a jutting crag into a sort of pocket in the side of the gorge, where there would be no danger of the magnificent beast being struck by a bullet. Taylor pulled his rifle from its saddle-sheath, examined the mechanism, looked at his pistols, and then returned to where Bud Hemmingway and Neil Norton sat on their horses.
Bud’s face was flushed and Norton was grinning. And at just the instant Taylor came in sight of them Norton was saying:
“Well, if you insist, I suppose I shall have to go to Kelso. There isn’t time to argue.”
Norton wheeled his horse, and, with a quick grin at Taylor, sent the animal clattering down the gorge.
Bud’s grin at Taylor was pregnant with guilt.
“Norton didn’t want me to stay. There’s lots of stubborn cusses in the world—now, ain’t they?”
Taylor’s answering smile showed that he understood.
“Get King back here with Spotted Tail, Bud!” he directed. “And take that pile of rocks for cover. They’re coming!”
By the time Bud did as he had been bidden, and was crouching behind a huge mound of broken rock on the north side of the gorge, Taylor on the southern side, with a twenty-foot passage on the comparatively level floor of the gorge between them, and an uninterrupted sweep of narrow level in front of them, except for here and there a jutting rock or a boulder, they saw Keats and his men just entering the stretch of broken country.
The horses of the pursuing outfit were doing their best. They came on over the stretch of treacherous trail, laboring, pounding and clattering; singly sometimes, two and three abreast where there was room, keeping well together, their riders urging them with quirt and spur. For far back on the trail they had lost sight of Bud, though Keats had remembered that Bud had said Taylor had gone to Kelso Basin, and therefore Keats knew he was on the right trail.
However, he did not want to let Bud get to Kelso before him to warn the Arrow outfit; for that would mean a desperate battle with a force equal in numbers to his own. Keats fought best when the advantages were with him,and he knew his men were similarly constituted. And so he was riding as hard as he dared, hoping that something would happen to Bud’s horse—that the animal might become winded or fall. A man could not tell whatmighthappen in a pursuit of this character.
But the thing thatdidhappen had not figured in Keats’s lurid conjectures at all. That was why, when he heard Taylor’s quick challenge, he pulled his horse up sharply, so that the animal slipped several feet and came to a halt sidewise.
Keats’s unexpected halt brought confusion to his followers. A dozen of them, crowding Keats hard, and not noticing their leader’s halt in time, rode straight against him, their horses jamming the narrow gorge, kicking, snorting and squealing in a disordered and uncontrollable mass.
When the tangle had been magically undone—the magic being Taylor’s voice again, burdened with sarcasm bearing upon their excitement—Keats found himself nearest the nest of rocks from behind which Taylor’s voice seemed to come.
The jutting crag behind which Taylor had concealed his horse, and where Bud had led King, completely obstructed Keats’s view of the gorge behind the crag, toward Kelso Basin, and Keats did not know but that the entire Arrow outfit was concealed behind the rocks and boulders that littered the level in the vicinity.
And so he sat motionless, slowly and respectfully raising his hands. Noting his action, his men did likewise.
“That’s polite,” came Taylor’s voice coldly. “Hemmingway says you’re looking for me. What for?”
“I’ve got a warrant for you, chargin’ you with murderin’ Larry Harlan.”
“Who accused me?”
“Mint Morton, of Nogel.”
There was a long silence. Behind the clump of rock Taylor smiled mirthlessly at Bud, who was watching him. For Taylor knew Mint Morton, of Nogel, as a gambler, unscrupulous and dishonest. He had earned Morton’s hatred when one night in a Nogel saloon he had caught Morton cheating and had forced him to disgorge his winnings. His victim had been a miner on his way East with the earnings of five years in his pockets. Taylor had not been able to endure the spectacle of abject despair that had followed the man’s loss of all his money.
Taylor did not know that Carrington had hunted Morton up, paying him well to bring the murder charge, but Taylor did know that he was innocent of murder; and by linking Morton with Carrington he could readily understand why Keats wanted him. He broke the silence with a short:
“Who issued the warrant?”
“Judge Littlefield.”
“Well,” said Taylor, “you can take it right back tohim and tell him to let Carrington serve it. For,” he added, a note of grim humor creeping into his voice, “I’m a heap particular about such things, Keats. I couldn’t let a sneak like you take me in. And I don’t like the looks of that dirty-looking outfit with you. And so I’m telling you a few things. I’m giving you one minute to hit the breeze out of this section. If you’re here when that time is up, I downyou, Keats! Slope!”
Keats flashed one glance around at his men. Some of them already had their horses in motion; others were nervously fingering their bridle-reins. Keats sneered at the rock nest ahead of him.
The intense silence which followed Taylor’s warning lasted about ten seconds. Then Keats’s face paled; he wheeled his horse and sent it scampering over the back trail, his men following, crowding him hard.
Hemmingway tentatively suggested that a ride through the gorge toward the Kelso Basin might simplify matters for himself and Taylor; it might, he said, even seem to make the defending of their position unnecessary. But his suggestions met with no enthusiasm from Taylor, who lounged among the rocks of his place of concealment calmly smoking.
Taylor gave some reasons for his disinclination to adopt Hemmingway’s suggestions.
“Norton will be back in an hour, with Bothwell and the outfit.” And now he grinned as he looked at Bud. “Miss Harlan told me to be careful about my scratches. I take it she don’t want no more sieges with a sick man. And I’m taking her advice. If I’d go to riding my horse like blazes, maybe Iwouldget sick again. And she wouldn’t take care of me anymore. And I’d hate like blazes to run from Keats and his bunch of plug-uglies!”
So Hemmingway said no more on that subject.
They smoked and talked and watched the trail for signs of Keats and his men; while the sun, which had been behind the towering hills surrounding the gorge, traveledslowly above them, finally blazing down from a point directly overhead.
It became hot in the gorge; the air was stifling and the heat uncomfortable. Taylor did not seem to mind it, but Bud, with a vigorous appetite, and longings that ran to flapjacks and sirup, grew impatient.
“If a man could eat now,” he remarked once, while the sun was directly overhead, “why, it wouldn’t be so bad!”
And then, after the sun’s blazing rays had begun to diminish in intensity somewhat, Bud looked upward and saw that the shimmering orb had passed beyond the crest of a towering hill. He looked sharply at Taylor, who was intently watching the back trail, and said gravely:
“Norton ought to have been back with Bothwell and the bunch, now.”
“He’s an hour overdue,” said Taylor, without looking at Bud.
“I reckon somethin’s happened,” growled Bud. “Somethin’ always happens when a guy’s holed up, like this. It wouldn’t be so bad if a man could eat a little somethin’—to sort of keep him from thinkin’ of it all the time. Or, mebbe, if there was a little excitement—or somethin’. A man could——”
“There’ll be plenty of excitement before long,” interrupted Taylor. “Keats and his gang didn’t go very far. I just saw one of them sneaking along that rock-knob,down the gorge a piece. They’re going to stalk us. If you’re thinking of riding to Kelso—why—” He grinned at Bud’s resentful scowl.
Lying flat on his stomach, he watched the rock-knob he had mentioned.
“Slick as an Indian,” he remarked once, while Bud, having ceased his discontented mutterings, kept his gaze on the rock also.
And then suddenly the eery silence of the gorge was broken by the sharp crack of Taylor’s rifle, and, simultaneously, by a shriek of pain. Report and shriek reverberated with weird, echoing cadences between the hills, growing less distinct always and finally the eery silence reigned again.
“They’ll know they can’t get careless, now,” grinned Taylor, working the ejector of his rifle.
Bud did not reply; and for another hour both men intently scanned the hills within range of their vision, straining their eyes to detect signs of movement that would warn them of the whereabouts of Keats and his men.
Anxiously Bud watched the rays of the sun creeping up a precipitous rock wall at a little distance. Slowly the streak of light narrowed, growing always less brilliant, and finally, when it vanished, Bud spoke:
“It’s comin’ on night, Squint. Somethin’s sure happened to Norton.” He wriggled impatiently, adding:“If we’re here when night comes we’ll have a picnic keepin’ them guys off of us.”
Taylor said nothing until the gorge began to darken with the shadows of twilight. Then he looked at Bud, his face grim.
“My stubbornness,” he said shortly. “I should have taken your advice about going to Kelso Basin—when we had a chance. But I felt certain that Norton would have the outfit here before this. Our chance is gone, now. There are some of Keats’s men in the hills, around us. I just saw one jump behind that rim rock on the shoulder of that big hill—there.” He indicated the spot. Then he again spoke to Bud.
“There’s a chance yet—for you. You take Spotted Tail and make a run for the basin. I’ll cover you.”
“What about you?” grumbled Bud.
Taylor grinned, and Bud laughed. “You was only funnin’ me, I reckon,” he said, earnestly. “You knowed I wouldn’t slope an’ leave you to fight it out alone—now didn’t you?”
“But if a man was hungry,” said Taylor, “and he knew there was grub with the outfit——”
“I ain’t hungry no more,” declared Bud; “I’ve quit thinkin’ of flapjacks for more than——”
He stiffened, and the first shadows of the night were split by a long, narrow flame-streak as his rifle crashed. And a man who had been slipping into the shelter of adepression on the side of a hill a hundred yards distant, tumbled grotesquely out and down, and went sliding to the bottom of the gorge.
As though the report of Bud’s rifle were a signal, a dozen vivid jets of fire flamed from various points in the surrounding hills, and the silence was rent by the vicious cracking of rifles and the drone and thud of bullets as they sped over the heads of the two men at the bottom of the gorge and flattened themselves against the rocks of their shelter.
That sound, too, died away. And in the heavy, portentous stillness which succeeded it, there came to the ears of the two besieged men the sounds of distant shouting, faint and far.
“It’s the outfit!” said Taylor.
And Bud, rolling over and over in an excess of joy over the coming of the Arrow men, hugged an imaginary form and yelled:
“Oh, Bothwell, you old son-of-a-gun! How I love you!”
One thought dominated Marion Harlan’s brain as she packed her belongings into the little handbag in her room at the Arrow—an overpowering, monstrous, hideous conviction that she had accepted charity from the man who was accused of murdering her father! There was no room in her brain for other thoughts or emotions; she was conscious of nothing but the horror of it; of the terrible uncertainty that confronted her—of the dread that Taylormightbe guilty! She wanted to believe in him—shedidbelieve in him, she told herself as she packed the bag; she could not accept the word of Keats as final. And yet she could not stay at the Arrow another minute—she could not endure the uncertainty. She must go away somewhere—anywhere, until the charge were proved, or until she could see Taylor, to look into his eyes, there to see his guilt or innocence.
She felt that the charge could not be true; for Taylor had treated her so fairly; he had been so sympathetically friendly; he had seemed to share her grief over her father’s death, and he had seemed so sincere in his declaration of his friendliness toward the man. He hadeven seemed to share her grief; and in the hallowed moments during which he had stood beside her while she had looked into her father’s room, he might have been secretly laughing at her!
And into her heart as she stood in the room, now, there crept a mighty shame—and the shadow of her mother’s misconduct never came so close as it did now. For she, too, had violated the laws of propriety; and what she was receiving was not more than her just due. And yet, though she could blame herself for coming to the Arrow, she could not excuse Taylor’s heinous conduct if he were guilty.
And then, the first fierce passion burning itself out, there followed the inevitable reaction—the numbing, staggering, sorrowing realization of loss. This in turn was succeeded by a frenzied desire to go away from the Arrow—from everybody and everything—to some place where none of them would ever see her again.
She started toward the door, and met Parsons—who was looking for her. He darted forward when he saw her, and grasped her by the shoulders.
“What has happened?” he demanded.
She told him, and the man’s face whitened.
“I was asleep, and heard nothing of it,” he said. “So that man Keats said they had plenty of evidence! You are going away? I wouldn’t, girl; there may have been a mistake. If I were you——”
Her glance of horror brought Parsons’ protests to an end quickly. He, too, she thought, was under the spell of Taylor’s magnetism. That, or every person she knew was a prey to those vicious and fawning instincts to which she had yielded—the subordination of principle to greed—of ease, or of wealth, or of place.
She shuddered with sudden repugnance.
For the first time she had a doubt of Parsons—a revelation of that character which he had always succeeded in keeping hidden from her. She drew away from him and walked to the door, telling him thathemight stay, but that she did not intend to remain in the house another minute.
She found a horse in the stable—two, in fact—the ones Taylor had insisted belonged to her and Martha. She threw saddle and bridle on hers, and was mounting, when she saw Martha standing at the stable door, watching her.
“Yo’ uncle says you goin’ away, honey—how’s that? An’ he done say somethin’ about Mr. Squint killin’ your father. Doan’ you b’lieve no fool nonsense like that! Mr. Squint wouldn’t kill nobody’s father! That deputy man ain’t nothin’ but a damn, no-good liar!”
Martha’s vehemence was genuine, but not convincing; and the girl mounted the horse, hanging the handbag from the pommel of the saddle.
“You’s sure goin’!” screamed the negro woman, franticwith a dread that she was in danger of losing the girl for whom she had formed a deep affection.
“You wait—you hear!” she demanded; “if you leave this house I’s a goin’, too!”
Marion waited until Martha led the other horse out, and then, with the negro woman following, she rode eastward on the Dawes trail, not once looking back.
And not a word did she say to Martha as they rode into the space that stretched to Dawes, for the girl’s heart was heavy with self-accusation.
They stopped for an instant at Mullarky’s cabin, and Mrs. Mullarky drew from the girl the story of the morning’s happenings. And like Martha, Mrs. Mullarky had an abiding faith in Taylor’s innocence. More—she scorned the charge of murder against him.
“Squint Taylor murder your father, child! Why, Squint Taylor thought more of Larry Harlan than he does of his right hand. An’ you ain’t goin’ to run away from him—for the very good reason that I ain’t goin’ to let you! You’re upset—that’s what—an’ you can’t think as straight as you ought to. You come right in here an’ sip a cup of tea, an’ take a rest. I’ll put your horses away. If you don’t want to stay at the Arrow while Taylor, the judge, an’ all the rest of them are pullin’ the packin’ out of that case, why, you can stay right here!”
Yielding to the insistent demands of the good woman, Marion meekly consented and went inside. And Mrs.Mullarky tried to make her comfortable, and attempted to soothe her and assure her of Taylor’s innocence.
But the girl was not convinced; and late in the afternoon, despite Mrs. Mullarky’s protests, she again mounted her horse and, followed by Martha, set out toward Dawes, intending to take the first east-bound train out of the town, to ride as far as the meager amount of money in her purse would take her. And as she rode, the sun went down behind the big hill on whose crest sat the big house, looming down upon the level from its lofty eminence; and the twilight came, bathing the world with its somber promise of greater darkness to follow. But the darkness that was coming over the world could not be greater than that which reigned in the girl’s heart.
Carrington’s experiences with Taylor had not dulled the man’s savage impulses, nor had they cooled his feverish desire for the possession of Marion Harlan. In his brain rioted the dark, unbridled passions of those progenitors he had claimed in his talk with Parsons on the morning he had throttled the little man in his rooms above the Castle.
For the moment he had postponed the real beginning of his campaign for the possession of Dawes, his venomous hatred for Taylor and his passion for the girl overwhelming his greed.
He had watched the departure of Keats and his men, a flush of exultation on his face, his eyes alight with fires that reflected the malignant hatred he felt. And when Keats and the others disappeared down the trail that led to the Arrow, Carrington spent some time in Dawes. Shortly after noon he rode out the river trail toward the big house with two men that he had engaged to set the interior in order.
Carrington had not seen the house since the fight with Taylor in the front room, and the wreck and ruin thatmet his gaze as he stood in the door brought a sullen pout to his lips.
But he intended to exact heavy punishment for what had occurred at the big house; and as he watched the men setting things to order—mending the doors and repairing the broken furniture—he drew mental pictures that made his eyes flash with pleasure.
He felt that by this time Keats and his men should have settled with Taylor. After that, he, himself, would make the girl pay.
So he was having the house put in order, that it would again be habitable; and then, when that was done, and Taylor out of the way, he would go to the Arrow after the girl. But before he went to the Arrow he would await the return of Keats with the news that Taylor would no longer be able to thwart him.
Never in his life had he met a man he feared as he feared Taylor. There was something about Taylor that made Carrington’s soul shrivel. He knew what it was—it was his conviction of Taylor’s absolute honorableness, as arrayed against his own beastly impulses. But that knowledge merely served to intensify his hatred for Taylor.
Toward evening Carrington rode back to Dawes with the men; and while there he sought news from Keats. Danforth, from whom he inquired, could tell him nothing, and so Carrington knew that Taylor had not yet beendisposed of. But Carrington knew the time would not be long now; and in a resort of a questionable character he found two men who listened eagerly to his proposals. Later, the two men accompanying him, he again rode to the big house.
And just as dusk began to settle over the big level at the foot of the long slope—and while the last glowing light from the day still softly bathed the big house, throwing it into bold relief on the crest of its flat-topped hill, Carrington was standing on the front porch, impatiently scanning the basin for signs of Keats and his men.
For a time he could distinguish little in the basin, for the mists of twilight were heavy down there. And then a moving object far out in the basin caught his gaze, and he leaned forward, peering intently, consumed with eagerness and curiosity.
A few minutes later, still staring into the basin, Carrington became aware that there were two moving objects. They were headed toward Dawes, and proceeding slowly; and at last, when they came nearer and he saw they were two women, on horses, he stiffened and shaded his eyes with his hands. And then he exclaimed sharply, and his eyes glowed with triumph—for he had recognized the women as Marion Harlan and Martha.
Moving slowly, so that he might not attract the attentionof the women, should they happen to be looking toward the big house, he went inside and spoke shortly to the two men he had brought with him.
An instant later the three, Carrington leading, rode into the timber surrounding the house, filed silently through it, and with their horses in a slow trot, sank down the long slope that led into the big basin.
For a time they were not visible, as they worked their way through the chaparral on a little level near the bottom of the slope; and then they came into view again in some tall saccaton grass that grew as high as the backs of their horses.
They might have been swimming in that much water, for all the sound they made as they headed through the grass toward the Dawes trail, for they made no sound, and only their heads and the heads of their horses appeared above the swaying grass.
But they were seen. Martha, riding at a little distance behind Marion, and straining her eyes to watch the trail ahead, noted the movement in the saccaton, and called sharply to the girl:
“They’s somethin’ movin’ in that grass off to your right, honey! It wouldn’t be no cattle, heah; they’s never no cattle round heah, fo’ they ain’t no water. Lawsey!” she exclaimed, as she got a clear view of them; “it’s men!”
Marion halted her horse. Martha’s voice had startledher, for she had not been thinking of the present; her thoughts had been centered on Taylor.
A shiver of trepidation ran over her, though, when she saw the men, and she gathered the reins tightly in her hands, ready to wheel the animal under her should the appearance of the men indicate the imminence of danger.
And when she saw that danger did indeed threaten, she spoke to the horse and turned it toward the back trail. For she had recognized one of the three men as Carrington.
But the horse had not taken a dozen leaps before Carrington was beside her, his hand at her bridle. And as her horse came to a halt, Carrington’s animal lunged against it, bringing the two riders close together. Carrington leaned over, his face close to hers; she could feel his breath in her face as he laughed jeeringly, his voice vibrating with passion:
“So itisyou, eh? I thought for a moment that I had made a mistake!” Holding to her horse’s bridle-rein with a steady pull that kept the horses close together, he spoke sharply to the two men who had halted near Martha: “Get the nigger! I’ll take care of this one!”
And instantly, with a brutal, ruthless strength and energy that took the girl completely by surprise, Carrington threw a swift arm out, grasped her by the waist, drew her out of the saddle, and swung her into his own, crosswise, so that she lay face up, looking at him.
She fought him then, silently, ferociously, though futilely. For he caught her hands, using both his own, pinning hers so that she could not use them, meanwhile laughing lowly at her efforts to escape.
Even in the dusk she could see the smiling, savage exultation in his eyes; the gloating, vindictive triumph, and her soul revolted at the horror in store for her, and the knowledge nerved her to another mighty effort. Tearing her hands free, she fought him again, scratching his face, striking him with all her force with her fists; squirming and twisting, even biting one of his hands when it came close to her lips as he essayed to grasp her throat, his eyes gleaming with ruthless malignance.
But her efforts availed little. In the end her arms were pinned again to her sides, and he pulled a rope from his saddle-horn and bound them. Then, as she lay back and glared at him, muttering imprecations that brought a mocking smile to his lips, he urged his horse forward, and sent it clattering up the slope, the two men following with Martha.
Elam Parsons stood on the front porch of the Arrow ranchhouse for a long time after Marion and Martha departed, watching them as they slowly negotiated the narrow trail that led toward Dawes. Something of the man’s guilt assailed his consciousness as he stood there—a conception of the miserable part he had played in the girl’s life.
No doubt had not Fate and Carrington played a mean trick on Parsons, in robbing him of his money and his prospects, the man would not have entertained the thoughts he entertained at this moment; for success would have made a reckoning with conscience a remote possibility, dim and far.
And perhaps it was not conscience that was now troubling Parsons; at least Parsons did not lay the burden of his present thoughts upon so intangible a chimera. Parsons was too much of a materialist to admit he had a conscience.
But a twinge of something seized Parsons as he watched the girl ride away, and bitter thoughts racked his soul. He could not, however, classify his emotions,and so he stood there on the porch, undecided, vacillating, in the grip of a vague disquiet.
Parsons sat on the porch until long after noon; for, after Marion and Martha had vanished into the haze of distance, Parsons dropped into a chair and let his chin sink to his chest.
He did not get up to prepare food for himself; he did not think of eating, for the big, silent ranchhouse and the gloomy, vacant appearance of the other buildings drew the man’s attention to the aching emptiness of his own life. He had sought to gain everything—scheming, planning, plotting dishonestly; taking unfair advantage; robbing people without compunction—and he had gained nothing. Yes—he had gained Carrington’s contempt!
The recollection of Carrington’s treatment of him fired his passions with a thousand licking, leaping flames. In his gloomy meditations over the departure of the girl, he had almost forgotten Carrington. But he thought of Carrington now; and he sat stiff and rigid in the chair, glowering, his lips in a pout, his soul searing with hatred.
But even the nursing of that passion failed to satisfy Parsons. Something lacked. There was still that conviction of utter baseness—his own baseness—to torture him. And at last, toward evening, he discovered that he longed for the girl. He wanted to be near her; he wanted to do something for her to undo the wrong he had done her; he wanted to make some sort of reparation.
So the man assured himself. But he knew that deep in his inner consciousness lurked the dread knowledge that Taylor was aware of his baseness. For Taylor had overheard the conversation between Carrington and himself on the train, and Parsons feared that should Taylor by any chance escape Keats and his men and return to the Arrow to find Marion gone, he would vent his rage and fury upon the man who had sinned against the woman he loved. That was the emotion which dominated Parsons as he sat on the porch; it was the emotion that made the man fervently desire to make reparation to the girl; it was the emotion that finally moved him out of his chair and upon a horse that he found in the stable, to ride toward Dawes in the hope of finding her.
Parsons, too, stopped at the Mullarky cabin. He discovered that Marion had left there shortly before, after having refused Mrs. Mullarky’s proffer of shelter until the charge against Taylor could be disproved.
Parsons listened impatiently to the woman’s voluble defense of Taylor, and her condemnation of Keats and all those who were leagued against the Arrow owner. And then Parsons rode on.
Far out in the basin, indistinct in the twilight haze, he saw Marion and Martha riding toward Dawes, and he urged his horse in an effort to come up with them before they reached the bottom of the long, gradual rise that would take them into town.
Parsons had got within half a mile of them when he saw them halt and wait the coming of three horsemen, who advanced toward them from the opposite direction. Parsons did not feel like joining the group, for just at that moment he felt as though he could not bear to have anyone see his face—they might have discovered the guilt in it—and so he waited.
He saw the three men ride close to the other riders; he watched in astonishment while one of the strange riders pursued one of the women, catching her.
Parsons saw it all. But he did not ride forward, for he was in the grip of a mighty terror that robbed him of power to move. For he knew one of the strange riders was Carrington. He would have recognized him among a thousand other men.
Parsons watched the three men climb the big slope that led to the great house on the flat-topped hill. For many minutes after they had reached the crest of the hill Parsons sat motionless on his horse, gazing upward. And when he saw a light flare up in one of the rooms of the big house, he cursed, his face convulsed with impotent rage.
Marion Harlan did not yield to the overpowering weakness that seized her after she realized that further resistance to Carrington would be useless. And instead of yielding to the hysteria that threatened her, she clenchedher hands and bit her lips in an effort to retain her composure. She succeeded. And during the progress of her captor’s horse up the long slope she kept a good grip on herself, fortifying herself against what might come when she and her captor reached the big house.
When they reached the crest of the hill, Carrington ordered the two men to take Martha around to the back of the house and confine her in one of the rooms. One man was to guard her. The other was to wait on the front porch until Carrington called him.
The girl had decided to make one more struggle when Carrington dismounted with her, but though she fought hard and bitterly, she did not succeed in escaping Carrington, and the latter finally lifted her in his arms and carried her into the front room, the room in which Carrington had fought with Taylor the day Taylor had killed the three men who had ambushed him.
Carrington lighted a lamp—it was this light Parsons had seen from the basin—placed it on a shelf, and in its light grinned triumphantly at the girl.
“Well, we are here,” he said.
In his voice was that passion that had been in it that other time, when he had pursued her into the house, and she had escaped him by hiding in the attic. She cringed from him, backing away a little, and, noting the movement, he laughed hoarsely.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “at least for an hour or two.I’ve got something more important on my mind. Do you know what it is?” he demanded, grinning hugely. “It’s Taylor!” He suddenly seemed to remember that he did not know why she had been abroad at dusk on the Dawes trail, and he came close to her.
“Did you see Keats today?”
She did not answer, meeting his gaze fairly, her eyes flashing with scorn and contempt. But he knew from the flame in her eyes that she had seen Keats, and he laughed derisively.
“So you saw him,” he jeered; “and you know that he came for Taylor. Did he find Taylor at the Arrow?”
Again she did not answer, and he went on, suspecting that Taylor had not been at the Arrow, and that Keats had gone to search for him. “No, Keats didn’t find him—that’s plain enough. I should have enjoyed being there to hear Keats tell you that Taylor had killed your father. You heard that, didn’t you? Yes,” he added, his grin broadening; “you heard that. So that’s why you left the Arrow! Well, I don’t blame you for leaving.”
He turned toward the door and wheeled again to face her. “You’ll enjoy this,” he sneered; “you’ve been so thick with Taylor. Bah!” he added as he saw her face redden at the insult; “I’ve known where you stood with Taylor ever since I caught you flirting with him on the station platform the day we came to Dawes. That’s why you went to the Arrow from here—refusing myattentions togiveyourself to the man who killed your father!”
He laughed, and saw her writhe under the sound of it.
“It hurts, eh?” he said venomously; “well, this will hurt, too. Keats went out to get Taylor, but he will never bring Taylor in—alive. He has orders to kill him—understand? That’s why I’ve got more important business than you to attend to for the next few hours. I’m going to Dawes to find out if Keats has returned. And when Keats comes in with the news that Taylor is done for, I’m coming back here for you!”
Calling the man who was waiting on the porch, Carrington directed him to watch the girl; and then, with a last grin at her, he went out, mounted his horse, and rode the trail toward Dawes. And as he rode, he laughed maliciously, for he had not told her that the charge against Taylor was a false one, and that, so far as he knew, Taylor was not guilty of murdering her father.