To Andrew the last danger of the holdup had been assigned as the rear guard, and he was the last man to pass Allister. The leader had drawn his horse to one side a couple of miles down the valley, and, as each of his band passed him, he raised his hand in silent greeting. It was the last Andrew saw of him, a ghostly figure sitting his horse with his hand above his head. After that his mind was busied by his ride, for, having the finest mount in the crowd, to him had been assigned the longest and the most roundabout route to reach the Twin Eagles.
Yet he covered so much ground with Sally that, instead of needing the full five days to make the rendezvous, he could afford to loaf the last stage of the journey. Even at that, he camped in sight of the cabin on the fourth night, and on the morning of the fifth he was the first man at the shack.
Jeff Rankin came in next. To Jeff, on account of his unwieldy bulk, had been assigned the shortest route; yet even so he dismounted, staggering and limping from his horse, and collapsed on the pile of boughs which Andrew had spent the morning cutting for a bed. As he dropped he tossed his bag of coins to the floor. It fell with a melodious jingling that was immediately drowned by Jeff's groans; the saddle was torture to him, and now he was aching in every joint of his enormous body. "A nice haul—nothin' to kick about," was Jeff's opinion. "But Caesar's ghost—what a ride! The chief makes this thing too hard on a gent that likes to go easy, Andy."
Andrew said nothing; silence had been his cue ever since he began acting as lieutenant to the chief. It had seemed tobaffle the others; it baffled the big man now. Later on Joe Clune and Scottie came in together. That was about noon—they had met each other an hour before. But Allister had not come in, although he was usually the first at a rendezvous. Neither did Larry la Roche come. The day wore on; the silence grew on the group. When Andrew, proportioning the work for supper, sent Joe to get wood, Jeff for water, and began himself to work with Scottie on the cooking, he was met with ugly looks and hesitation before they obeyed. Something, he felt most decidedly, was in the air. And when Joe and Rankin came back slowly, walking side by side and talking in soft voices, his suspicions were given an edge.
They wanted to eat together; but he forced Scottie to take post on the high hill to their right to keep lookout, and for this he received another scowl. Then, when supper was half over, Larry la Roche came in to camp. News came with him, an atmosphere of tidings around his gloomy figure, but he cast himself down by the fire and ate and drank in silence, until his hunger was gone. Then he tossed his tin dishes away and they fell clattering on the rocks.
"Pick 'em up," said Andrew quietly. "We'll have no litter around this camp." Larry la Roche stared at him in hushed malevolence. "Stand up and get 'em," repeated Andrew. As he saw the big hands of Larry twitching he smiled across the fire at the tall, bony figure. "I'll give you two seconds to get 'em," he said.
One deadly second pulsed away, then Larry crumpled. He caught up his tin cup and the plate. "We'll talk later about you," he said ominously.
"We'll talk about something else first," said Andrew. "You've seen Allister?"
At first it seemed that La Roche would not speak; then his wide, thin lips writhed back from his teeth. "Yes."
"Where is he?" "Gone to the happy hunting grounds."
The silence came and the pulse in it. One by one, by a natural instinct, the men looked about them sharply into the night and made sure of their weapons. It was the only tribute to the memory of Allister from his men, but tears and praise could not have been more eloquent. He had made these men fearless of the whole world. Now were they ready to jump at the passage of a shadow. They looked at each other with strange eyes.
"Who? How many?" asked Jeff Rankin.
"One man done it."
"Hal Dozier?" said Andrew.
"Him," said Larry la Roche. He went on, looking gloomily down at the fire. "He got me first. The chief must of seen him get me by surprise, while I was down off my hoss, lying flat and drinking out of a creek!" He closed his great, bony fist in unspeakable agony at the thought. "Dozier come behind and took me. Frisked me. Took my guns, not the coin. We went down through the hills. Then the chief slid out of a shadow and come at us like a tiger. I sloped."
"You left Allister to fight alone?" said Scottie Macdougal quietly, for he had come from his lookout to listen.
"I had no gun," said Larry, without raising his eyes from the fire. "I sloped. I looked back and seen Allister sitting on his hoss, dead still. Hal Dozier was sittin' on his hoss, dead still. Five seconds, maybe. Then they went for their guns together. They was two bangs like one. But Allister slid out of his saddle and Dozier stayed in his. I come on here."
The quiet covered them. Joe Clune, with a shudder and another glance over his shoulder, cast a branch on the fire, and the flames leaped.
"Dozier knows you're with us," added Larry la Roche, and he cast a long glance of hatred at Andrew. "He knowsyou're with us, and he knows our luck left us when you come."
Andrew looked about the circle; not an eye met his.
The talk of Larry la Roche during the days of the ride was showing its effect now. The gage had been thrown down to Andrew, and he dared not pick it up.
"Boys," he said, "I'll say this: Are we going to bust up and each man go his way?"
There was no answer.
"If we do, we can split the profits over again. I'll take no money out of a thing that cost Allister's death. There's my sack on the floor of the shack. Divvy it up among you. You fitted me out when I was broke. That'll pay you back. Do we split up?"
"They's no reason why we should—and be run down like rabbits," said Joe Clune, with another of those terrible glances over his shoulder into the night.
The others assented with so many growls.
"All right," said Andrew, "we stick together. And, if we stick together, I run this camp."
"You?" asked Larry la Roche. "Who picked you? Who 'lected you, son? Why, you unlucky—"
"Ease up," said Andrew softly.
The eyes of La Roche flicked across the circle and picked up the glances of the others, but they were not yet ready to tackle Andrew Lanning.
"The last thing Allister did," said Andrew, "was to make me his lieutenant. It's the last thing he did, and I'm going to push it through. Not because I like the job." He raised his head, but not his voice. "They may run down the rest of you. They won't run down me. They can't. They've tried, and they can't. And I might be able to keep the rest of you clear. I'm going to try. But I won't follow the lead of any of you. If there'd been one that could keep the rest of you together, d'you think Allister wouldn't have seen it? Don'tyou think he would of made that one leader? Why, look at you! Jeff, you'd follow Clune. But would Larry or Scottie follow Clune? Look at 'em and see!"
All eyes went to Clune, and then the glances of Scottie and La Roche dropped.
"Nobody here would follow La Roche. He's the best man we've got for some of the hardest work, but you're too flighty with your temper, Larry, and you know it. We respect you just as much, but not to plan things for the rest of us. Is that straight?
"And you, Scottie," said Andrew, "you're the only one I'd follow. I say that freely. But who else would follow you? You're the best of us all at headwork and planning, but you don't swing your gun as fast, and you don't shoot as straight as Jeff or Larry or Joe. Is that straight?"
"What's leading the gang got to do with fighting?" asked Scottie harshly. "And who's got the right to the head of things but me?"
"Ask Allister what fighting had to do with the running of things," said Andrew calmly.
The moon was sliding up out of the east; it changed the faces of the men and made them oddly animallike; they stared, fascinated, at Andrew.
"There's two reasons why I'm going to run this job, if we stick together. Allister named them once. I can take advice from any one of you; I know what each of you can do; I can plan a job for you; I can lead you clear of the law—and there's not one of you that can bully me or make me give an inch—no, nor all of you together—La Roche! Macdougal! Clune! Rankin!"
It was like a roll call, and at each name a head was jerked up in answer, and two glittering eyes flashed at Andrew—flashed, sparkled, and then became dull. The moonlight had made his pale skin a deadly white, and it was a demoniac face they saw.The silence was his answer.
"Jeff," he commanded, "take the hill. You'll stand the watch tonight. And look sharp. If Dozier got Allister he's apt to come at us. Step on it!"
And Jeff Rankin rose without a word and lumbered to the top of the hill. Larry la Roche suddenly filled his cup with boiling hot coffee, regardless of the heat, regardless of the dirt in the cup. His hand shook when he raised it to his lips.
There was no further attempt at challenging his authority. When he ordered Clune and La Roche to bring in boughs for bedding—since they were to stop in the shack overnight—they went silently. But it was such a silence as comes when the wind falls at the end of a day and in a silent sky the clouds pile heavily, higher and higher. Andrew took the opportunity to speak to Scottie Macdougal. He told Scottie simply that he needed him, and with him at his back he could handle the others, and more, too. He was surprised to see a twinkle in the eye of the Scotchman.
"Why, Andy," said the canny fellow, "didn't you see me pass you the wink? I was with you all the time!"
Andrew thanked him and went into the cabin to arrange for lights. He had no intention of shirking a share in the actual work of the camp; even though Allister had set that example for his following. He took some lengths of pitchy pine sticks and arranged them for torches. One of them alone would send a flare of yellow light through the cabin; two made a comfortable illumination. But he worked cheerlessly. The excitement of the robbery and the chase wasover, and then the conflict with the men was passing. He began to see things truly by the drab light of retrospection. The bullets of Allister and Clune might have gone home— they were intended to kill, not to wound. And if there had been two deaths he, Andrew Lanning, would have been equally guilty with the men who handled the guns, for he had been one of the forces which made that shooting possible.
It was an ugly way to look at it—very ugly. It kept a frown on Andrew's face, while he arranged the torches in the main room of the shack and then put one for future reference in the little shed which leaned against the rear of the main structure. He arranged his own bed in this second room, where the saddles and other accouterments were piled. It was easily explained, since there was hardly room for five men in the first room. But he had another purpose. He wanted to separate himself from the others, just as Allister always did. Even in a crowded room Allister would seem aloof, and Andrew determined to make the famous leader his guide.
Above all he was troubled by what Scottie had said. He would have felt easy at heart if the Scotchman had met him with an argument or with a frown or honest opposition or with a hearty handshake, to say that all was well between them. But this cunning lie—this cunning protestation that he had been with the new leader from the first, put Andrew on his guard. For he knew perfectly well that Scottie had not been on his side during the crisis with La Roche. Macdougal sat before the door, his metal flask of whisky beside him. It was a fault of Allister, this permitting of whisky at all times and in all places, after a job was finished. And while it made the other men savage beasts, it turned Scottie Macdougal into a wily, smiling snake. He had bit the heel of more than one man in his drinking bouts.
Presently La Roche and Clune came in. They had been talking together again. Andrew could tell by the manner inwhich they separated, as soon as they entered the room, and by their voices, which they made loud and cheerful; and, also, by the fact that they avoided looking at each other. They were striving patently to prove that there was nothing between them; and if Andrew had been on guard, now he became tinglingly so.
They arranged their bunks; Larry la Roche took from his vest a pipe with a small bowl and a long stem and sat down cross-legged to smoke. Andrew suggested that Larry produce the contents of his saddlebag and share the spoils of war.
He brought it out willingly enough and spilled it out on the improvised table, a glittering mass of gold trinkets, watches, jewels. He picked out of the mass a chain of diamonds and spread it out on his snaky fingers so that the light could play on it. Andrew knew nothing about gems, but he knew that the chain must be worth a great deal of money.
"This," said Larry, "is my share. You gents can have the rest and split it up."
"A nice set of sparklers," nodded Clune, "but there's plenty left to satisfy me."
"What you think," declared Scottie, "ain't of any importance, Joe. It's what the chief thinks that counts. Is it square, Lanning?"
Andrew flushed at the appeal and the ugly looks which La Roche and Clune cast toward him. He could have stifled Scottie for that appeal, and yet Scottie was smiling in the greatest apparent good nature and belief in their leader. His face was flushed, but his lips were bloodless. Alcohol always affected him in that manner.
"I don't know the value of the stones," said Andrew.
"Don't you?" murmured Scottie. "I forgot. Thought maybe you would. That was something that Allister did know."The new leader saw a flash of glances toward Scottie, but the latter continued to eye the captain with a steady and innocent look.
"Scottie," decided Andrew instantly, "is my chief enemy."
If he could detach one man to his side all would be well. Two against three would be a simple thing, as long as he was one of the two. But four against one—and such a four as these—was hopeless odds. There seemed little chance of getting Joe Clune. There remained only Jeff Rankin as his possibly ally, and already he had stepped on Jeff's toes sorely, by making the tired giant stand guard. He thought of all these things, of course, in a flash. And then in answer to his thoughts Jeff Rankin appeared. His heavy footfall crashed inside the door. He stopped, panting, and, in spite of his news, paused to blink at the flash of jewels.
"It's comin'," said Jeff. "Boys, get your guns and scatter out of the cabin. Duck that light! Hal Dozier is comin' up the valley."
There was not a single exclamation, but the lights went out as if by magic; there were a couple of light, hissing sounds, such as iron makes when it is whipped swiftly across leather.
"How'd you know him by this light?" asked Larry la Roche, as they went out of the door. Outside they found everything brilliant with the white moonshine of the mountains.
"Nobody but Hal Dozier rides twistin' that way in the saddle. I'd tell him in a thousand. It's old wounds that makes him ride like that. We got ten minutes. He's takin' the long way up the cañon. And they ain't anybody with him."
"If he's come alone," said Andrew, "he's come for me and not for the rest of you."
No one spoke. Then Larry la Roche: "He wants to makeit man to man. That's clear. That's why he pulled up his hoss and waited for Allister to make the first move for his gun. It's a clean challenge to some one of us."
Andrew saw his chance and used it mercilessly.
"Which one of you is willing to take the challenge?" he asked. "Which one of you is willing to ride down the cañon and meet him alone? La Roche, I've heard you curse Dozier."
But Larry la Roche answered: "What's this fool talk about takin' a challenge? I say, string out behind the hills and pot him with rifles."
"One man, and we're five," said Jeff Rankin. "It ain't sportin', Larry. I hate to hear you say that. We'd be despised all over the mountains if we done it. He's makin' his play with a lone hand, and we've got to meet him the same way. Eh, chief?"
It was sweet to Andrew to hear that appeal. And he saw them turn one by one toward him in the moonlight and wait. It was his first great tribute. He looked over those four wolfish figures and felt his heart swelling.
"Wish me luck, boys," he said, and without another word he turned and went down the hillside.
The others watched him with amazement. He felt it rather than saw it, and it kept a tingle in his blood. He felt, also, that they were spreading out to either side to get a clear view of the fight that was to follow, and it occurred to him that, even if Hal Dozier killed him, there would not be one chance in a thousand of Hal's getting away. Four deadly rifles would be covering him.
It must be that a sort of madness had come on Dozier, advancing in this manner, unsupported by a posse. Or, perhaps, he had no idea that the outlaws could be so close. He expected a daylight encounter high up the mountains.
But Andrew went swiftly down the ravine.
Broken cliffs, granite boulders jumped up on either sideof him, and the rocks were pale and glimmering under the moon. This one valley seemed to receive the light; the loftier mountains rolling away on each side were black as jet, with sharp, ragged outlines against the sky. It was a cold light, and the chill of it went through Andrew. He was afraid, afraid as he had been when Buck Heath faced him in Martindale, or when Bill Dozier ran him down, or when the famous Sandy cornered him. His fingers felt brittle, and his breath came and went in short gasps, drawn into the upper part of his lungs only.
Behind him, like an electric force pushing him on, the outlaws watched his steps. They, also, were shuddering with fear, and he knew it.
Dozier was coming, fresh from another kill.
"Only one man I'd think twice about meeting," Allister had said in the old days, and he had been right. Yet there were thousands who had sworn that Allister was invincible—that he would never fall before a single man.
He thought, too, of the lean face and the peculiar, set eye of Dozier. The man had no fear, he had no nerves; he was a machine, and death was his business.
And was he, Andrew Lanning, unknown until the past few months, now going down to face destruction, as full of fear as a girl trembling at the dark? What was it that drew them together, so unfairly matched?
He could still see only the white haze of the moonshine before him, but now there was the clicking of hoofs on the rock. Dozier was coming. Andrew walked squarely out into the middle of the ravine and waited. He had set his teeth. The nerves on the bottom of his feet were twitching. Something freezing cold was beginning at the tips of his fingers. How long would it take Dozier to come?
An interminable time. The hoofbeats actually seemed to fade out and draw away at one time. Then they began again very near him, and now they stopped. Had Dozier seen himaround the elbow curve? That heartbreaking instant passed, and the clicking began again. Then the rider came slowly in view. First there was the nodding head of the cow pony, then the foot in the stirrup, then Hal Dozier riding a little twisted in the saddle—a famous characteristic of his.
He came on closer and closer. He began to seem huge on the horse. Was he blind not to see the figure that waited for him?
A voice that was not his, that he did not recognize, leaped out from between his teeth and tore his throat: "Dozier!"
The cow pony halted with a start; the rider jerked straight in his saddle; the echo of the call barked back from some angling cliff face down the ravine. All that before Dozier made his move. He had dropped the reins, and Andrew, with a mad intention of proving that he himself did not make the first move toward his weapon, had folded his arms.
He did not move through the freezing instant that followed. Not until there was a convulsive jerk of Dozier's elbow did he stir his folded arms. Then his right arm loosened, and the hand flashed down to his holster.
Was Dozier moving with clogged slowness, or was it that he had ceased to be a body, that he was all brain and hair-trigger nerves making every thousandth part of a second seem a unit of time? It seemed to Andrew that the marshal's hand dragged through its work; to those who watched from the sides of the ravine, there was a flash of fire from his gun before they saw even the flash of the steel out of the holster. The gun spat in the hand of Dozier, and something jerked at the shirt of Andrew beside his neck. He himself had fired only once, and he knew that the shot had been too high and to the right of his central target; yet he did not fire again. Something strange was happening to Hal Dozier. His head had nodded forward as though in mockeryof the bullet; his extended right hand fell slowly, slowly; his whole body began to sway and lean toward the right. Not until that moment did Andrew know that he had shot the marshal through the body.
He raced to the side of the cattle pony, and, as the horse veered away, Hal Dozier dropped limply into his arms. He lay with his limbs sprawling at odd angles beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyes were bright and wide, and his face perfectly composed.
"There's luck for you," said Hal Dozier calmly. "I pulled it two inches to the right, or I would have broken your neck with the slug—anyway, I spoiled your shirt."
The cold was gone from Andrew, and he felt his heart thundering and shaking his body. He was repeating like a frightened child, "For God's sake, Hal, don't die—don't die."
The paralyzed body did not move, but the calm voice answered him: "You fool! Finish me before your gang comes and does it for you!"
There was a rush of footsteps behind and around him, a jangle of voices, and there were the four huddled over Hal Dozier. Andrew had risen and stepped back, silently thanking God that it was not a death. He heard the voices of the four like voices in a dream.
"A clean one." "A nice bit of work." "Dozier, are you thinkin' of Allister, curse you?" "D'you remember Hugh Wiley now?" "D'you maybe recollect my pal, Bud Swain? Think about 'em, Dozier, while you're dyin'!"The calm eyes traveled without hurry from face to face. And curiosity came to Andrew, a cool, deadly curiosity. He stepped among the gang.
"He's not fatally hurt," he said. "What d'you intend to do with him?"
"You're all wrong, chief," said Larry la Roche, and he grinned at Andrew. His submission now was perfect and complete. There was even a sort of worship in the bright eyes that looked at the new leader. "I hate to say it, but right as you mos' gener'ly are, you're wrong this time. He's done. He don't need no more lookin' to. Leave him be for an hour and he'll be finished. Also, that'll give him a chance to think. He needs a chance. Old Curley had a chance to think—took him four hours to kick out after Dozier plugged him. I heard what he had to say, and it wasn't pretty. I think maybe it'd be sort of interestin' to hear what Dozier has to say. Long about the time he gets thirsty. Eh, boys?"
There was a snarl from the other three as they looked down at the wounded man, who did not speak a word. And Andrew knew that he was indeed alone with that crew, for the man whom he had just shot down was nearer to him than the members of Allister's gang.
He spoke suddenly: "Jeff, take his head; Clune, take his feet. Carry him up to the cabin."
They only stared at him.
"Look here, captain," said Scottie in a soft voice, just a trifle thickened by whiskey, "are you thinking of taking him up there and tying him up so that he'll live through this?"
And again the other three snarled softly.
"You murdering hounds!" said Andrew.
That was all. They looked at each other; they looked at the new leader. And the sight of his white face and his nervous right hand was too much for them. They took up the marshal and carried him to the cabin, hispony following like a dog behind. They brought him, without asking for directions, straight into the little rear room—Andrew's room. It was a sufficiently intelligible way of saying that this was his work and none of theirs. And not a hand lifted to aid him while he went to work with the bandaging. He knew little about such work, but the marshal himself, in a rather faint, but perfectly steady voice, gave directions. And in the painful cleaning of the wound he did not murmur once. Neither did he express the slightest gratitude. He kept following Andrew about the room with coldly curious eyes.
In the next room the voices of the four were a steady, rumbling murmur. Now and then the glance of the marshal wandered to the door. When the bandaging was completed, he asked, "Do you know you've started a job you can't finish?"
"Ah?" murmured Andrew.
"Those four," said the marshal, "won't let you."
Andrew smiled.
"Are you easier now?"
"Don't bother about me. I'll tell you what—I wish you'd get me a drink of water."
"I'll send one of the boys."
"No, get it yourself. I want to say something to them while you're gone."
Andrew had risen up from his knees. He now studied the face of the marshal steadily.
"You want 'em to come in here and drill you, eh?" he said. "Why?"
The other nodded.
"I've given up hope once; I've gone through the hardest part of dying; let them finish the job now."
"Tomorrow you'll feel differently."
"Will I?" asked the marshal. All at once his eyes went yellow with hate. "I go back to the desert—I go to Martindale—peopleI pass on the street whisper as I go by. They'll tell over and over how I went down. And a kid did it—a raw kid!"
He closed his eyes in silent agony. Then he looked up more keenly than before. "How'll they know that it was luck—that my gun stuck in the holster—and that you jumped me on the draw?"
"You lie," said Andrew calmly. "Your gun came out clean as a whistle, and I waited for you, Dozier. You know I did."
The pain in the marshal's face became a ghastly thing to see. At last he could speak.
"A sneak always lies well," he replied, as he sneered at Lanning.
He went on, while Andrew sat shivering with passion. "And any fool can get in a lucky shot now and then. But, when I'm out of this, I'll hunt you down again and I'll plant you full of lead, my son! You can lay to that!"
The hard breathing of Andrew gradually subsided.
"It won't work, Dozier," he said quietly. "You can't make me mad enough to shoot a man who's down. You can't make me murder you."
The marshal closed his eyes again, while his breathing was beginning to grow fainter, and there was an unpleasant rattle in the hollow of his throat. Andrew went into the next room.
"Scottie," he said, "will you let me have your flask?"
Scottie smiled at him.
"Not for what you'd use it for, Lanning," he said.
Andrew picked up a cup and shoved it across the table.
"Pour a little whisky in that, please," he said.
Scottie looked up and studied him. Then he tipped his flask and poured a thin stream into the cup until it was half full. Andrew went back toward the door, the cup in his left hand. He backed up, keeping his face steadily toward thefour, and kicked open the door behind him.
War, he knew, had been declared. Then he raised the marshal's head and gave him a sip of the fiery stuff. It cleared the face of the wounded man.
Then Andrew rolled down his blankets before the door, braced a small stick against it, so that the sound would be sure to waken him if anyone tried to enter, and laid down for the night. He was almost asleep when the marshal said: "Are you really going to stick it out, Andy?"
"Yes."
"In spite of what I've said?"
"I suppose you meant it all? You'd hunt me down and kill me like a dog after you get back on your feet?"
"Like a dog."
"If you think it over and see things clearly," replied Andrew, "you'll see that what I've done I've done for my own sake, and not for yours."
"How do you make that out—with four men in the next room ready to stick a knife in your back—if I know anything about 'em?"
"I'll tell you: I owe nothing to you, but a man owes a lot to himself, and I'm going to pay myself in full."
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but, though he came to the verge of oblivion, the voices from the other room finally waked him. They had been changing subtly during the past hours and now they rose, and there was a ring to them that troubled Andrew.
He could make out their talk part of the time; and then again they lowered their voices to rumbling growls. At suchtimes he knew that they were speaking of him, and the hum of the undertone was more ominous than open threats. When they talked aloud there was a confused clamor; when they were more hushed there was always the oily murmur of Scottie's voice, taking the lead and directing the current of the talk.
The liquor was going the rounds fast, now. Before they left for the Murchison Pass they had laid in a comfortable supply, but apparently Allister had cached a quantity of the stuff at the Twin Eagles shack. Of one thing Andrew was certain, that four such practiced whisky drinkers would never let their party degenerate into a drunken rout; and another thing was even more sure—that Scottie Macdougal would keep his head better than the best of the others. But what the alcohol would do would be to cut the leash of constraint and dig up every strong passion among them. For instance, Jeff Rankin was by far the most equable of the lot, but, given a little whisky, Jeff became a conscienceless devil.
He knew his own weakness, and Andrew, crawling to the door and putting his ear to the crack under it, found that the sounds of the voices became instantly clearer; the others were plying Jeff with the liquor, and Jeff, knowing that he had had enough, was persistently refusing, but with less and less energy.
There must be a very definite reason for this urging of Rankin toward the whisky, and Andrew was not hard pressed to find out that reason. The big, rather good-natured giant was leaning toward the side of the new leader, just as steadily as the others were leaning away from him. Whisky alone would stop his scruples. Larry la Roche, his voice a guarded, hissing whisper, was speaking to Jeff as Andrew began listening from his new position.
"What I ask you," said La Roche, "is this: Have we had any luck since the kid joined us?" "We've got a pile of the coin," said Jeff obstinately.
"D'you stack a little coin against the loss of Allister?" asked Larry la Roche.
"Easy," cautioned Scottie. "Not so loud, Larry."
"He's asleep," said Larry la Roche. "I heard him lie down after he'd put something agin' the door. No fear of him."
"Don't be so sure. He might make a noise lying down and make not a sound getting up. And, even when he's asleep, he's got one eye open like a wolf."
"Well," repeated Larry insistently, and now his voice was so faint that Andrew had to guess at half the syllables, "answer my question, Jeff: Have we had good luck or bad luck, takin' it all in all, since he joined us?"
"How do I know it's his fault?" asked Jeff. "We all knew it would be a close pinch if Allister ever jumped Hal Dozier. We thought Allister was a little bit faster than Dozier. Everybody else said that Dozier was the best man that ever pulled a gun out of leather. It wasn't luck that beat Allister—it was a better man."
There was a thud as his fist hit the rickety, squeaking table in the center of the room.
"I say, let's play fair and square. How do I know that the kid won't make a good leader?"
Scottie broke in smoothly: "Makes me grin when you say that, Jeff. Tell you what the trouble is with you, old man: you're too modest. A fellow that's done what you've done, following a kid that ain't twenty-five!"
There was a bearlike grunt from Jeff. He was not altogether displeased by this gracious tribute. But he answered: "You're too slippery with your tongue, Scottie. I never know when you mean what you say!"
It must have been a bitter pill for Scottie to swallow, but he was not particularly formidable with his weapons, compared with straight-eyed Jeff Rankin, and he answered: "Maybe there's some I jolly along a bit, but, when I talk toold Jeff Rankin, I talk straight. Look at me now, Jeff. Do I look as if I was joking with you?"
"I ain't any hand at readin' minds," grumbled Jeff.
He added suddenly: "I say it was the finest thing I ever see, the way young Lanning stood out there in the valley. Did you watch? Did you see him let Dozier get the jump on his gun? Pretty, pretty, pretty! And then his own gat was out like a flash—one wink, and there was Hal Dozier drilled clean! I tell you, boys, you got this young Lanning wrong. I sort of cotton to the kid. I always did. I liked him the first time I ever laid eyes on him. So did you all, except Larry, yonder. And it was Larry that turned you agin' him after he come and joined us. Who asked him to join us? We did!"
"Who asked him to be captain?" said Scottie.
It seemed to stagger Jeff Rankin.
"Allister used him for a sort of second man; seemed like he meant him to lead us in case anything happened to him."
"While Allister was living," said Scottie, "you know I would of followed him anywhere. Wasn't I his advance agent? Didn't I do his planning with him? But now Allister's dead—worse luck—but dead he is."
He paused here cunningly, and, no doubt, during that pause each of the outlaws conjured up a picture of the scar-faced man with the bright, steady eyes, who had led them so long and quelled them so often and held them together through thick and thin.
"Allister's dead," repeated Scottie, "and what he did while he was alive don't hold us now. We chose him for captain out of our own free will. Now that he's dead we have the right to elect another captain. What's Lanning done that he has a right to fill Allister's place with us? What job did he have at the holdup? When we stuck up the train didn't he have the easiest job? Did he give one good pieceof advice while we were plannin' the job? Did he show any ability to lead us, then?"
The answer came unhesitatingly from Rankin: "It wasn't his place to lead while Allister was with us. And I'll tell you what he done after Allister died. When I seen Dozier comin', who was it that stepped out to meet him? Was it you, Scottie? No, it wasn't. It wasn't you, La Roche, neither, nor you, Clune, and it wasn't me. Made me sick inside, the thought of facin' Dozier. Why? Because I knew he'd never been beat. Because I knew he was a better man than Allister, and that Allister had been a better man than me. And it ain't no braggin' to say I'm a handier gent with my guns than any of you. Well, I was sick, and you all were sick. I seen your faces. But who steps out and takes the lead? It was the kid you grin at, Scottie; it was Andy Lanning, and I say it was a fine thing to do!"
It was undoubtedly a facer; but Scottie came back in his usual calm manner.
"I know it was Lanning, and it was a fine thing. I don't deny, either, that he's a fine gent in lots of ways—and in his place—but is his place at the head of the gang? Are we going to be bullied into having him there?"
"Then let him follow, and somebody else lead."
"You make me laugh, Jeff. He's not the sort that will follow anybody."
Plainly Scottie was working on Jeff from a distance. He would bring him slowly around to the place where he would agree to the attack on Andrew for the sake of getting at the wounded marshal.
"Have another drink, Jeff, and then let's get back to the main point, and that has nothin' to do with Andy. It is: Is Hal Dozier going to live or die?"
The time had come, Andrew saw, to make his final play. A little more of this talk and the big, good-hearted, strong-handedRankin would be completely on the side of the others. And that meant the impossible odds of four to one. Andrew knew it. He would attack any two of them without fear. But three became a desperate, a grim battle; and four to one made the thing suicide.
He slipped silently to his feet from beside the door and picked up the canvas bag which represented his share of the robbery. Then he knocked at the door.
"Boys," he called, "there's been some hard thoughts between the lot of you and me. It looks like we're on opposite sides of a fence. I want to come in and talk to you."
Instantly Scottie answered: "Why, come on in, captain; not such hard words as you think—not on my side, anyways!"
It was a cunning enough lure, no doubt, and Andrew had his hand on the latch of the door before a second thought reached him. If he exposed himself, would not the three of them pull their guns? They would be able to account for it to Jeff Rankin later on.
"I'll come in," said Andrew, "when I hear you give me surety that I'll be safe. I don't trust you, Scottie."
"Thanks for that. What surety do you want?"
"I want the word of Jeff Rankin that he'll see me through till I've made my talk to you and my proposition."
It was an excellent counterthrust, but Larry la Roche saw through the attempt to win Jeff immediately.
"You skunk!" he said. "If you don't trust us we don't trust you. Stay where you be. We don't want to hear your talk!"
"Jeff, what do you say?" continued Andrew calmly.
There was a clamor of three voices and then the louder voice of Jeff, like a lion shaking itself clear of wolves: "Andy, come in, and I'll see you get a square deal—if you'll trust me!"Instantly Andrew threw open the door and stepped in, his revolver in one hand, the heavy sack over his other arm, a dragging weight and also a protection.
"I'll trust you, Jeff," he said. "Trust you? Why, man, with you at my back I'd laugh at twenty fellows like these. They simply don't count."
It was another well-placed shot, and he saw Rankin flush heavily with pleasure. Scottie tilted his box back against the wall and delivered his counterstroke: "He said the same thing to me earlier on in the evening," he remarked casually. "But I told him where to go. I told him that I was with the bunch first and last and all the time. That's why he hates me!"
While he searched desperately for an answer, Andrew found none. Then he saw the stupid, big eyes of Jeff wander from his face to the face of Scottie, and he knew that his previous advantage had been completely neutralized.
"Boys," he said, and he surveyed the restless, savage figures of Clune and La Roche, "I've come for a little plain talk. There's no more question about me leadin' the gang. None at all. I wouldn't lead you, La Roche, nor you, Clune, nor you, Scottie. There's only one man here that's clean—and he's Jeff Rankin."
He waited for that point to sink home; as Scottie opened his lips to strike back, he went ahead deliberately. By retaining his own calm he saw that he kept a great advantage. Rankin began fumbling at his cup; Scottie instantly filled it half full with whisky. "Don't drink that," said Andrew sharply. "Don't drink it, Jeff. Scottie's doin' that on purpose to get you sap headed!"
"Do what he says," said Scottie calmly. "Throw the dirty stuff away, Jeff. Do what your daddy tells you. You ain't old enough to know your own mind, are you?"
Big Jeff flushed, cast a glance of defiance that included both Andrew and Scottie, and tossed off the whisky. It was a blow over the heart for Andrew; he had to finish his talking now, before Jeff Rankin was turned mad by the whisky. And if he worked it well, Jeff would be on his side. The madness would fight for Andrew.
He said: "There's no more question about me being a leader for you. Personally, I'd like to have Jeff—not to follow me, but to be pals with me."
Jeff cleared his throat and looked about with foolish importance. Not an eye wavered to meet his glance; every look was fixed with a hungry hate upon Andrew.
"There's only one thing up between the lot of us: Do I keep Hal Dozier, or do you get him—to murder him? Do you fellows ride on your way free and easy, to do what you please, or do you tackle me in that room, eat my lead, and then, if you finish me, get a chance to kill a man that's nearly dead now? How does it look to you, boys? Think it over. Think sharp!"
He knew while he spoke that there was one exquisitely simple way to end both his life and the life of Dozier—let them touch a match to the building and shoot him while he ran from the flames. But he could only pray that they would not see it.
"And besides, I'll do more. You think you have a claim on Dozier. I'll buy him from you. Here's half his weight in gold. Will you take the money and clear out? Or are you going to make the play at me? If you do, you'll buy whatever you get at a high price!" "You forget—" put in Scottie, but Andrew interrupted.
"I don't want to hear from you, Scottie. I know you're a snake. I want to hear from Jeff Rankin. Speak up, Jeff. Everything's in your hands, and I trust you!"
The giant rose from his chair. His face was white with the effect of the whisky, and one spot of color burned in each cheek. He looked gloweringly upon his companions.
"Andy," he said, "I—"
"Wait a minute," said Scottie swiftly, seeing that the scales were balancing toward a defeat.
"Let him talk. You don't have to tell him what to say," said Andrew.
"I've got a right to put our side up to him—for the sake of the things we've been through together. Jeff, have I?"
Jeff Rankin cleared his throat importantly. Scottie faced him; the others kept their unchanging eyes rivetted upon Andrew, ready for the gun play at the first flicker of an eyelid. The first sign of unwariness would begin and end the battle.
"Don't forget this," went on Scottie, having Jeff's attention. "Andy is workin' to keep Dozier alive. Why? Dozier's the law, isn't he? Then Andy wants to make up with the law. He wants to sneak out. He wants to turn state's evidence!"
The deadly phrase shocked Jeff Rankin a pace back toward soberness.
"I never thought," he began.
"You're too straight to think of it. Take another look at Lanning. Is he one of us? Has he ever been one of us? No! Look again! Dozier has hunted Lanning all over the mountain desert. Now he wants to save Dozier. Wants to risk his life for him. Wants to buy him from us! Why? Because he's turned crooked. He's turned soft. He wants to get under the wing of the law."
But Jeff Rankin swept all argument away with a movement of his big paws. "Too much talk," he said. "I want to think."
His stupid, animal eyes went laboriously around the room. "I wish Allister was here," he said. "He always knew."
"For my part," said Scottie, "I can't be bought. Not me!" He suddenly leaned to the big man, and, before Andrew could speak, he had said: "Jeff, you know why I want to get Dozier. Because he ran down my brother. And are you going to let him go clear, Jeff? Are you going to have Allister haunt you?"
It was the decisive stroke. The big head of Jeff twitched back, he opened his lips to speak—and in that moment, knowing that the battle was over and lost to him, Andrew, who had moved back, made one leap and was through the door and into the little shed again. The gun had gleamed in the hand of Larry la Roche as he sprang, but Andrew had been too quick for the outlaw to plant his shot.
He heard Jeff Rankin still speaking: "I dunno, quite. But I see you're right, Scottie. They ain't any reason for Lanning to be so chummy with Dozier. And so they must be somethin' crooked about it. Boys, I'm with you to the limit! Go as far as you like. I'm behind you!"
No room for argument now; and the blind, animal hate which Scottie and La Roche and Clune felt for Dozier was sure to drive them to extremities. Andrew sat in the dark, hurriedly going over his rifle and his revolver. Once he was about to throw open the door and try the effect of a surprise attack. He might plant two shots before there was a return; he let the idea slip away from him. There would remain two more, and one of them was certain to kill him.
Moving across the room he heard a whisper from the floor: "I've heard them, Lanning. Don't be a fool. Give me up to 'em!"
He made no answer. In the other room the voices were no longer restrained; Jeff Rankin's in particular boomedand rang and filled the shed. Once bent on action he was all for the attack; whisky had removed the last human scruple. And Andrew heard them openly cast their ballots for a new leader; heard Scottie acclaimed; heard the Scotchman say: "Boys, I'm going to show you a way to clean up on Dozier and Lanning, without any man risking a single shot from him in return."
They clamored for the suggestion, but he told them that he was first going out into the open to think it over. In the meantime they had nothing to fear. Sit fast and have another drink around. He had to be alone to figure it out.
It was very plain. The wily rascal would let them go one step farther toward an insanity of drink, and then, his own brain cold and collected, he would come back to turn the shack into a shambles. He had said he could do it without risk to them. There was only one possible meaning; he intended to use fire.
Andrew sat with the butt of his rifle ground into his forehead. It was still easy to escape; the insistent whisper from the floor was pointing out the way: "Beat it out that back window, lad. Slope, Andy; they's no use. You can't help me. They mean fire; they'll pot you like a pig, from the dark. Give me up!"
It was the advice to use the window that decided Andrew. It was a wild chance indeed, this leaving of Dozier helpless on the floor; but he risked it. He whispered to the marshal that he would return, and slipped through the window. He was not halfway around the house before he heard a voice that chilled him with horror. It was the marshal calling to them that Andrew was gone and inviting them in to finish him. But they suspected, naturally enough, that the invitation was a trap, and they contented themselves with abusing him for thinking them such fools.
Andrew went on; fifty feet from the house and just aside from the shaft of light that fell from the open door, stoodScottie. His head was bare, his face was turned up to catch the wind, and no doubt he was dreaming of the future which lay before him as the new captain of Allister's band. The whisper of Andrew behind him cut his dream short. He whirled to receive the muzzle of a revolver in his stomach. His hands went up, and he stood gasping faintly in the moonlight.
"I've got you, Scottie," he said, "and so help me heaven, you're the first man that I've wanted to kill."
It would have taken a man of supernerve to outface that situation. And the nerve of Scottie cracked.
He began to whisper with a horrible break and sob in his breath: "Andy—Andy, gimme a chance. I'm not fit to go—this way. Andy, remember—"
"I'm going to give you a chance. You're pretty low, Scottie; I check what you've done to the way you hate Dozier, and I won't hold a grudge. And I'll tell you the chance you've got. You see these rocks, here? I'm goin' to lie down behind them. I'm going to keep you covered with my rifle. Scottie, did you ever see me shoot with a rifle?"
Scottie shuddered—a very sufficient reply.
"I'm going to keep you covered. Then you'll turn around and walk straight back to the shack. You'll stand there—always in clean sight of the doorway—and you'll persuade that crowd of drunks to leave the house and ride away with you. Understand, when you get inside the house, there'll be a big temptation to jump to one side and get behind the wall—just one twitch of your muscles, and you'd be safe. But, fast as you could move, Scottie, powder drives lead a lot faster. And I'll have you centered every minute. You'll make a pretty little target against the light, besides. You understand?
"The moment you even start to move fast, I pull the trigger. Remember it, Scottie. For as sure as there's a hell, I'll send you into it head first, if you don't." "So help me heaven," said Scottie, "I'll do what I can. I think I can talk 'em into it. But if I don't?"
"If you don't, you're dead. That's short, and that's sweet. Keep it in your head. Go back and tell them it would take too great a risk to try to fix me.
"And there's another thing to remember. If you should be able to get behind the wall without being shot, you're not safe. Not by a long way, Scottie. I'd still be alive. And, though you'd have Hal Dozier there to cut up as you pleased, I'd be here outside the cabin watching it—with my rifle. And I'd tag some of you when you tried to get out. And if I didn't get you all I'd start on your trail. Scottie, you fellows, even when you had Allister to lead you, couldn't get off scot-free from Dozier. Scottie, I give you my solemn word of honor, you'll find me a harder man to get free from than Hal Dozier.
"Here's the last thing: If you do what I tell you—if you get that crowd of drunken brutes out of the cabin and away without harming Dozier, I'll wipe out the score between us. No matter what you told the rest of them, you know I've never broken a promise, and that I never shall."
He stopped and, stepping back to the rocks, sank slowly down behind them. Only the muzzle of his rifle showed, no more than the glint of a tiny bit of quartz; his left hand was raised, and, at its gesture, Scottie turned and walked slowly toward the cabin doorway. Once, stumbling over something, he reeled almost out of the shaft of light, but stopped on the edge of safety with a terrible trembling. There he stood for a moment, and Andrew knew that he was gathering his nerve. He went on; he stood in the doorway, leaning with one arm against it.
What followed Andrew could not hear, except an occasional roar from Rankin. Once Larry la Roche came and stood before the new leader, gesturing frantically, and the ring of his voice came clearly to Andrew. The Scotchmannegligently stood to one side; the way between Andrew and Larry was cleared, and Andrew could not help smiling at the fiendish malevolence of Scottie. But he was apparently able to convince even Larry la Roche by means of words. At length there was a bustling in the cabin, a loud confusion, and finally the whole troop went out. Somebody brought Scottie his saddle; Jeff Rankin came out reeling.
But Scottie stirred last from the doorway; there he stood in the shaft of light until some one, cursing, brought him his horse. He mounted it in full view. Then the cavalcade started down the ravine.
Certainly it was not an auspicious beginning for Scottie Macdougal.