VB's eyes burned after Gail as she drove away. He followed the car in its flight until it disappeared over the hump in the road; then continued staring in that direction with eyes that did not see—that merely burned like his throat.
Jed came up the gulch with a load of wood, and VB still stood by the gate.
"I never can get used to these here city ways," he grumbled, "no more'n can these ponies."
VB noticed casually that a tug had been broken and was patched with rope.
"Runaway?" he asked, scarcely conscious of putting the question.
"Oh, Bob Thorpe's girl come drivin' her automobile along fit to ram straight through kingdom come, an' don't turn out till she gets so close I thought we was done for; to be sure, I did. Peter, here, took a jump an' busted a tug." He looked keenly at VB. "Funny!" he remarked. "She didn't see me, I know. An' she looked as if she'd been cryin'!"
He could not know the added torture those words carried to the heart of the young fellow battling there silently, covering up his agony, trying to appear at ease.
For the thirst had returned with manifold force, augmenting those other agonies which racked him. All former ordeals were forgotten before the fury of this assault. By the need of stimulant he was subjected to every fiendish whim of singing nerves; from knowing that in him was a love which must be killed to save a woman from sacrifice arose a torment that reached into his very vitals.
The glands of his mouth stopped functioning, and it seemed as though only one thing would take the cursed dryness from his tongue and lips. His fingers would not be still; they kept plucking and reaching out for that hidden chord which would draw him back to himself, or on down into the depths—somehow, he did not care which. Anything to be out of that killing uncertainty!
As he had gained in strength during those months, so it now seemed had the thirst grown. It battered down his spirit, whipped it to a pulp, and dragged it through the sloughs of doubt and despair. His will—did he have a will? He did not know; nor did he seem to care.
It had come—the slipping backward. He had battled well, but now he could feel himself going, little by little, weakening, fighting outwardly but at heart knowing the futility of it all. And going because of Gail Thorpe! "I can't put this mark on her!" he moaned against the Captain's neck. "She said it—that even those we love must bear the mark. And she said it was all good. She was wrong, wrong! Such a thing can't be good!
"Suppose I did keep above it, was sure of myself for a time in a sham way, wouldn't it only be running the risk of a greater disaster? Wouldn't it surely come some time? Wouldn't it, if—
"And then it would kill her, too!"
He hammered the Captain's shoulder with his clenched fist and the great stallion snuggled his cheek closer to the man, trying to understand, trying to comfort.
Then would come moments when his will rallied and Young VB fought with the ferocity of a jungle cat, walking back and forth across the corral, talking to the Captain, condemning his weaker self, gesticulating, promising. At those times he doubted whether it was so much the actual thirst that tore him as it was wondering if he could be worthy of her. Then the old desire would come again, in an engulfing wave, and his fighting would become empty words.
Jed, who had ridden up the gulch to look after a gap in the fence, returned at dusk. As he watched VB feed the Captain he saw in the gloom the straining of the boy's face; heard him talk to the stallion piteously; and the old man's lips framed silent words.
"If it's that girl," he declared, shaking his fist at the skies—"if it's that girl, she ought to be—ought to be spanked. An' if it's th' wantin' of whisky, God pity th' boy!"
Supper was a curious affair. VB tried to help in the preparation but spoiled everything he touched, so far removed was his mind from the work of his hands. Jed ate alone. VB sat down, but could not touch the food offered. He gulped coffee so steaming hot that Jed cried aloud a warning.
"Burned?" scoffed VB. "Burned by that stuff? Jed, you don't know what burning is!"
He got to his feet and paced the floor, one hand pressed against his throat.
The boy sat down twice again and drank from the cup the old man kept filled, but his lips rebelled at food; his hands would not carry it from the plate.
Once Jed rose and tried to restrain the pacing.
"VB, boy," he implored, "set down an' take it easy. Please do! It's been bad before, you know, but it's always turned out good in th' end. It will this time—same as always. Just—"
"Don't, Jed." He spoke weakly, averting his white face and pushing the old man away gently with trembling hands. "You don't understand; you don't understand!"
For the first time he was beyond comfort from the little old man who had showed him the lighted way, who had encouraged and comforted and held faith in him.
After a while a calm fell on VB and he stopped his walking, helped with the work, and then sat, still and white, in his chair. Jed watched him narrowly and comfort came to the old soul, for he believed the boy had won another fight over the old foe; was so sure of it that he whistled as he prepared for the night.
The candle burned on, low against the neck of the bottle, but still bright and steady. VB watched it, fascinated, thought tagging thought through his mind. Then a tremor shot through his body.
"Jed," he said in a voice that was strained but even, "let's play a little pitch, won't you?"
It was his last hope, the last attempt to divert the attack on his will and bolster his waning forces. His nerves jumped and cringed and quivered, but outwardly he was calm, his face drawn to mask the torture.
Jed, aroused, rubbed his sleepy eyes and lighted his pipe. He put on his steel-rimmed spectacles and took down the greasy, cornerless deck of cards to shuffle them slowly, with method, as though it were a rite.
VB sat motionless and a little limp in his chair, too far from the table for comfortable playing. Jed peered at him over his glasses.
"You might get th' coffee beans," he said, with a great yawn.
When the other did not answer he said again: "You might get th' coffee beans, VB. Sleepy?"
The young chap arose then to follow the suggestion, but ignored the query. He went to the cupboard and brought back a handful of the beans, the cowman's poker chips. His hand was waiting for him.
"Good deal?" Jed asked.
VB shook his head. "Not better than a couple."
"O-ho, I'm better off!" and Jed slammed down the ace of hearts.
VB leaned low and played the four-spot, almost viciously, gritting his teeth to force his mind into the game. It rebelled, told him the uselessness of such things, the hopelessness before him, tried to play on the aridness of his throat. But for the moment his will was strong and he followed the game as though gambling for a life.
Suddenly the thought surged through him that he was gambling for a life—hisownlife, and possibly for a woman's life!
Jed made his points, and again, on his own bid, he swept up the coffee counters. Then he took off his glasses and laid them aside with another yawn.
VB wanted to cry aloud to him to keep on playing; he wanted to let Jed Avery know all that the simple, foolish little game of cards meant to him. But somehow his waning faith had taken with it the power to confide.
Jed made four inexcusable blunders in playing that hand, and each time his muttered apologies became shorter. When the hand was over and he had won a point he did not notice that the boy failed to give him the counter.
VB dealt, picked up his cards, and waited for the bid. But Jed's chin was on his breast, one hand lay loosely over the scattered cards before him; the other hung at his side limply. His breath came and went regularly. Sleep had stolen in on VB's final stand!
Oh, if Jed Avery had only known! If his kindly old heart had only read VB better, divining the difference between calm and peace! For a long time VB looked at the old man, his breath gradually quickening, the flame in his eyes growing sharper, more keen, as the consuming fire in him ate away the last barriers of resistance. Once his gaze went to the candle, burning so low against the bottle, yet so brightly, its molten wax running down and adding to the incrustment. He stared wanly at the bright little beacon and shook his head, terror wiping out the vestiges of a smile.
Action! That was what he wanted! Action! He must move or lose his mind and babble and scream! He must move and move rapidly—as rapidly as the rush of those thoughts through his inflamed mind.
He trembled in every limb as he sat there, realizing the need for bodily activity.
And yet, guilefully, craftily, softly, that voice down within him told that action could be of only one sort, could take him only in one direction. It whined and wheedled and gave him a cowardly assurance, made him lie in his own thoughts; made him cautious in his sneaking determination, for he knew any question Jed might ask would bring frenzy.
VB rose, slowly, carefully, so that there might be no creaking of the boots or scraping of chair legs. He picked up his hat, his muffler, his jumper, and moved stealthily toward the door, opened it inch by inch, and shut it behind him quickly, silently, cutting off the draft of night air—for such a thing might be as disastrous as a cry aloud.
The moon rode above the ridge and the air had lost its winter's edge. It was mild, but with the tang of mountain nights. It was quiet below, but as he stood in the open, pulling on his jumper, he heard the stirring of wind on the points above. It was a soughing, the sort of wind that makes stock uneasy; and VB caught that disquieting vibration.
He stepped out from the cabin and a soft calling from the corral reached him.
"Coming, Captain, coming," he answered.
And with a guilty glance behind him he felt for the gun nestling against his side. His jaw-muscles tightened as he assured himself it was fastened there securely.
The Captain was waiting at the gate. VB let it swing open, then turned and walked toward the saddle rack. The horse followed closely, ears up as though in wonder at this procedure.
"It's all right, Captain," VB whispered as he threw on the saddle blanket. As he drew the cinch tight he muttered: "Or else all wrong!"
Action, action! his body begged. He must have it; nothing else would suffice! He wanted to fly along, skimming the tops of those ghost bushes, ripping through the night, feeling the ripple of wind on that throat, the cooling currents of air against those hammering temples.
And VB knew it was a lie! A rank, deliberate, hypocritical lie! He knew what that action meant, he knew in what direction it would take him. He knew; he knew!
"Oh, Captain!" he sobbed, drawing the bridled head against his chest. "You know what it is to fight! You know what it is to yield! But the yielding didn't break you, boy! It couldn't. You were too big, too great to be broken; they could only bend and—"
With a breath of nervous rage he was in the saddle. The Captain's feet rattled on the hard ground with impatience. An instant VB hesitated, gathering the reins, separating them from the strands of thick mane. Then, leaning low, uttering a throaty wail, he gave the Captain his head and into the veiled night they bolted.
The cattle were coming on him, and he was powerless to move! They were bunched, running shoulder to shoulder, and his bed was in their path! Jed tried to raise his arms and could barely move them; his legs rebelled. The stampede was roaring at him! Oh, the rumble of those hoofs, those sharp, cloven, blind, merciless hoofs, that would mangle and tear and trample!
Jed Avery awoke with a start. He was on his feet in the middle of the floor before consciousness came, gasping quickly at the horror of his dream, his excited heart racing!
But it was no stampede. Running hoofs, but no stampede! He stumbled to the door and flung it open. His old eyes caught the flash of a lean, dark object as it raced across the dooryard straight at the gate, never pausing, never hesitating, and taking the bars with a sturdy leap that identified the horse instantly.
"VB!"
He called the name shrilly into the night, but his cry was drowned to the rider's ears, for the Captain's hoofs had caught ground again and were spurning it viciously as he clawed for the speed, the action, that was to satisfy the outraged nerves of his master!
That lie! It was not the action that would satisfy. The flight was only an accessory, an agency that would transport VB to the scene of the renunciation of all that for which he had battled through those long months.
For a long moment Jed stood in the doorway as he had poised at first, stiff, rigid. The sounds of the rushing horse diminuendoed quickly and became only a murmur in the night. Jed Avery's figure lost its tensity, went slack, and he leaned limply against the door frame.
"He's gone!" he moaned. "He's gone! It's broke in on him—Oh, VB, I'm afraid it has! No good takes you south at this time, after th' spell you've had!"
He slammed the door shut and turned back into the room. Unsteady feet took him to his chair, and he settled into it heavily, leaning against the table, his eyes registering the sight of no objects.
"He was fightin' harder'n ever," he whispered dryly, "an' I set here sleepin'. To be sure, I wasn't on hand when VB needed me most!"
The ending of his self-accusation was almost a sob, and his head dropped forward. He sat like that for an hour. The fire in the stove went out, and the cool of night penetrated the log walls of the cabin. He gazed unblinkingly at the floor; now and then his lips formed soundless words.
The candle, burning low, fed the flame too fiercely with the last bit of itself. The neck of the bottle was a globule of molten wax in which the short wick swam. The flame had become larger, but it was dead and the smoke rose thickly from its heavy edges. The grease seemed to be disturbed. It quivered, steadied, then settled. The flame slipped down the neck of the bottle and was snuffed out by the confines of the thing.
Jed Avery drew a long, quivering breath, a breath of horror. He turned his face toward the place where the light had been, hoping that his sight had failed. Then he reached out and found the bottle. His hard fingers ran over it, felt the empty neck, paused, and drew away as though it were an infectious thing.
The old man sagged forward to the table, his face in his arms.
On into the night went the Captain, bearing VB. Over the gate the bridle-rein drew against his neck and the big beast swung to the right, following the road southward, on down the gulch, on toward Ranger—a fierceness in his rider's heart that was suicidal.
All the bitterness VB had endured, from the stinging torrent his father turned upon him back in New York to the flat realization that to let himself love Gail Thorpe might bring him into worse hells, surged up into his throat and mingled with the craving there. It seeped through into his mind, perverted his thoughts, stamped down the optimism that had held him up, shattered what remnants of faith still remained.
"Faster, Captain!" he cried. "Faster!"
And the stallion responded, scudding through the blue moonlight with a speed that seemed beyond the power of flesh to attain. He shook his fine head and stretched out the long nose as though the very act of thrusting it farther would give more impetus to his thundering hoofs.
VB sat erect in the saddle, a fierce delight aroused by the speed running through his veins like fire—and, reaching to his throat, adding to the scorching. He swung his right hand rhythmically, keeping time to the steady roll of the stallion's feet. The wind tore at him, vibrating his hat brim, whipping the long muffler out from his neck, and he shook his head against it.
He was free at last! Free after those months of doubt, of foolish fighting! He was answering the call that came from the depths of his true self—that hidden self—the call of flesh that needs aid! He cared not for the morrow, for the stretching future. His one thought was on the now—on the rankling, eating, festering moment that needed only one thing to be wiped out forever.
And always, in the back of his mind, was the picture of Gail Thorpe as she had turned from him that afternoon. It loomed large and larger as he tore on to the south through the solitude, ripping his way through the cool murk.
"I won't put my mark on her!" he cried, and whipped the Captain's flanks with his heavy hat, the thought setting his heart flaming. "I won't!" he cried. And again, "I won't!"
He was riding down into his particular depths so to stultify himself that it would be impossible to risk that woman's happiness against the chance that some time, some day, he would go down, loving her, making her know he loved her, but fighting without gain. That, surely, is one sort of love, faulty though the engendering spirit may be.
The whipping with the hat sent the horse on to still greater endeavor. A slight weariness commenced to show in the ducking of his head with every stride, but he did not slacken his pace. His ears were still set stiffly forward, flipping back, one after the other, for word from his rider; the spurn of his feet was still sharp and clear and unfaltering; the spirit in that rippling, dripping body still ran high.
And closing his eyes, drinking the night air through his mouth in great gulps, VB let the animal carry him on and on,—yet backward, back into the face of all that fighting he had summoned, doubling on his own tracks, slipping so easily down the way he had blazed upward with awful sacrifice and hardship.
An hour—two—nine—eleven—the Captain might have been running so a week, and VB would not have known. His mind was not on time, not on his horse. He had ceased to think beyond the recognition of a craving, a craving that he did not fight but encouraged, nursed, teased—for it was going to be satisfied!
The stallion's pace began to slacken. He wearied. The bellows lungs, the heart of steel, the legs of tireless sinew began to feel the strain of that long run. The run waned to a gallop, and the gallop to a trot. There his breathing becoming easier, he blew loudly from his nostrils as though to distend them farther and make way for the air he must have.
VB realized this dully but his heeding of that devilish inner call had taken him so far from his more tender self, from his instinctive desire to love and understand, that he did not follow out his comprehension.
"Go it, boy!" he muttered. "It's all I'll ask of you—just this one run."
And the Captain, dropping an ear back for the word, leaned to the task, resuming the steady, space-eating gallop mile after mile. All the way into Ranger they held that pace. In the last mile the stallion stumbled twice, but after both breaks in his stride ran on more swiftly for many yards, as though to make up to his master for the jolting the half falls gave him. He was a bit unsteady on those feet as he took the turn and dropped down the low bank into the river. They forded it in a shimmer of silver as the horse's legs threw out the black water to be frozen and burnished by the light of the moon. The stallion toiled up the far bank at a lagging trot, and on the flat VB pulled the panting animal down to a walk.
Oh, VB, it was not too late then, had you only realized it! Your ideal was still there, more exemplary than ever before, but you could not recognize it through those eyes which saw only the red of a wrecking passion! You had drained to the last ounce of reserve the strength of that spirit you had so emulated, which had been as a shining light, an unfaltering candle in the darkness. It was stripped bare before you as that splendid animal gulped between breaths. Could you have but seen! Could something only havemadeyou see! But it was not to be.
VB had forgotten the Captain. In the face of his wretched weakening the stallion became merely a conveyance, a convenience, a means for stifling the neurotic excitement within him. He forgot that this thing he rode represented his only achievement—an achievement such as few men ever boast.
He guided the stallion to a half-wrecked log house south of the road, dismounted, and stood a moment before the shack, his glittering eyes on the squares of light yonder under the rising hill. He heard a faint tinkling from the place, and a voice raised in laughter.
As he watched, a mounted man passed between him and the yellow glare. In a moment he saw the man enter the saloon door.
"Come, boy," he muttered, moving cautiously through the opening into the place. "You'll be warm in here. You'll cool off slowly."
Then, in a burst of hysterical passion, he threw his arms about the stallion's head and drew it to him fiercely.
"Oh, I won't be gone long, Captain!" he promised. "Not long—just a little while. It's not the worst, Captain! I'm not weakening!"
Drunk with the indulgence of his nervous weakness, he lied glibly, knowing he lied, without object—just to lie, to pervert life. And as the Captain's quick, hot breath penetrated his garments, VB drew the head still tighter.
"You're all I've got, Captain," he muttered, now in a trembling calm. "You'll wait. I know that. I know what you will do better than I know anything else in the world—better than I know what—whatI'lldo! Wait for me, boy—wait right here!"
His voice broke on the last word as he stumbled through the door and set off toward the building against the hill. He did not hear the Captain turn, walk as far as the door of the shack, and peer after him anxiously. Nor did he see the figure of a man halted in the road, watching him go across the flat, chaps flapping, brushing through the sage noisily.
VB halted in the path of light, swaying the merest trifle from side to side as he pulled his chap belt in another hole and tried to still the twitching of his hands, the weakening of his knees.
The tinkling he had heard became clear. He could see now. A Mexican squatted on his spurs, back against the wall, and twanged a fandango on a battered guitar. His hat was far back over his head, cigarette glowing in the corner of his mouth, gay blue muffler loose on his shoulders. He hummed to the music, his voice rising now and then to float out into the night above the other sounds from the one room.
The bar of rough boards, top covered with red oilcloth, stretched along one side. Black bottles flashed their high lights from a shelf behind it, above which hung an array of antlers. The bartender, broad Stetson shading his face, talked loudly, his hands wide apart on the bar and bearing much of his weight. Now and then he dropped his head to spit between his forearms.
Three men in chaps lounged before the bar, talking. One, the tallest, talked with his head flung back and gestures that were a trifle too loose. The shortest looked into his face with a ceaseless, senseless smile, and giggled whenever the voice rose high or the gestures became unusually wild. The third, elbows on the oilcloth, head on his fists, neither joined in nor appeared to heed the conversation.
Back in the room stood two tables, both covered with green cloth. One was unused; the other accommodated four men. Each of the quartet wore a hat drawn low over his face; each held cards. They seldom spoke; when they did, their voices were low. VB saw only their lips move. Their motions were like the words—few and abrupt. When chips were counted it was with expertness; when they were shoved to the center of the table it was with finality.
Near them, tilted against the wall in a wire-trussed chair, sat a sleeping man, hat on the floor.
Two swinging oil lamps lighted the smoke-fogged air of the place, and their glow seemed to be diffused by it, idealizing everything, softening it—
Everything except the high lights from the bottles on the shelf. Those were stabs of searing brightness; they hurt VB's eyeballs.
His gaze traveled back to the Mexican. The melody had drifted from the fandango into a swinging waltz song popular in the cities four years before. He whistled the air through his teeth. The cigarette was still between his lips. The face brought vague recollections to VB. Then he remembered that this was Julio, the Mexican who ran with Rhues. He belonged to Rhues, they had told him, body and soul.
Thought of Rhues sent VB's right hand to his left side, up under the arm. He squeezed the gun that nestled there.
Of a sudden, nausea came to the man who looked in. It was not caused by fear of Rhues—of the possibility of an encounter. The poignant fumes that came from the open door stirred it, and the sickness was that of a man who sees his great prize melt away.
For the moment VB wanted to rebel. He tore his eyes from those glittering bottles; tried to stop his breathing that treacherous nostrils might not inhale those odors.
But it was useless—his feet would not carry him away. He knew he must move, move soon, and though he now cried out in his heart against it he knew which way his feet would carry him.
He half turned his body and looked back toward the shack where the Captain waited, and a tightening came in his throat to mingle with the rapaciousness there.
"Just a little while, Captain," he whispered, feeling childishly that the horse would hear the words and understand. "Just a little while—I'm just—just going to take a little hand in the card game."
And as the Mexican finished his waltz with a rip of the thumb clear across the six strings of his instrument, Young VB put a foot on the threshold of the saloon and slowly drew himself to his full height in the doorway. Framed by darkness he stood there, thumbs in his belt, mouth in a grim line, hat down to hide the pallor of his cheeks, the torment in his eyes; his shoulders were braced back in resolution, but his knees, inside his generous chaps, trembled.
Even the vibrating guitar strings seemed to be stilled suddenly. For VB, an abrupt hush crushed down on the scene. He felt the eyes as, pair after pair, they followed those of the Mexican and gazed at him; even the man slumbering in his chair awoke, raised his head, and stared at him sleepily. He stood in the doorway, leaning lightly against the logs, returning each gaze in turn.
"Hello, VB!" one of the trio before the bar said.
"Hello, Tom!" answered the newcomer—and stepped into the room.
Then what hush had fallen—real or imaginary—lifted and the talk went on, the game progressed.
Perhaps the talk was not fully sincere, possibly the thoughts of the speakers were not always on their words, for every man in the place stole glances at the tall young fellow as he moved slowly about the room.
They had known for months the fight that was going on up there on Jed Avery's ranch. They knew that the man who had mastered the Captain and set his name forever in the green annals of the country had been fighting to command himself against the attacks of the stuff they peddled here in the saloon at Ranger. They knew how he had fought off temptation, avoided contact with whisky—and now, late at night, he had walked slowly into the heart of the magnet that had exerted such an influence on him. So they watched VB as he moved about.
The sharp lights from those black bottles! Like snakes' eyes, they commanded his—and, when this power had been exerted, they seemed to stab the brain that directed sight at them. In the first few steps across the rough floor VB answered their call to look a half dozen times, and after each turning of his gaze jerked his eyes away in pain.
He did not turn toward the bar—rather, kept close to the wall, passing so near the squatting Mexican that the flap of his chaps brushed the other's knees. The Greaser picked at the strings of his instrument aimlessly, striking unrelated chords, tinkling on a single string; then came a few bars from the fandango. His head was tilted to one side and a glittering eye followed the slow-moving figure of Young VB.
By the time the newcomer was halfway toward the poker table the Mexican got to his feet, sliding his back slowly up the wall until he reached a standing position. Then, for the first time taking his eyes from VB, he stepped lightly toward the door. After a final tinkling chord had fallen he disappeared, guitar slung under one arm, walking slowly away from the lighted place. But when he was beyond sight of those within, he ran.
VB went on, past the just-awakened man in his chair, close to the poker table. The players looked up again, first one, with a word of recognition; then two spoke at once, and after he had raked in the pot the fourth nodded with a welcoming grunt.
The young fellow leaned a shoulder against the log wall and watched the game. That is, he looked at it. But continually his fevered memory retained a vision of those glares from the bottles.
His mind again played crazy tricks, as it always did when the thirst clamored loudly. The rattle of the chips sounded like ice in glasses, and he turned his head quickly toward the bar, following the imaginary sound.
The four men there were just drinking. He followed their movements with wild eyes. The bartender lifted his glass to the level of his forehead in salute, then drained its contents slowly, steadily, every movement from the lifting to the setting down of the empty glass smooth, deliberate—even polished—the movements of a professedly artful drinker. The silent man offered no good word—merely lifted the glass and drank, tipping his head but slightly, emptying the glass with an uneven twisting of the wrist, something like an exaggerated tremble. The short man tossed his drink off by elevating the glass quickly to his lips and throwing his head back with a jerk to empty it into his mouth. The tall man, who talked loudly and motioned much, waved his drink through the air to emphasize a declaration, and with an uncertain swoop directed it to his lips. He leaned backward from the hips to drink, and the movement made him reel and grasp the bar for support.
As he had followed the movements of those men, so VB followed the course of the stuff they drank down their throats; in imagination, down his throat, until it hit upon and glossed over that spot which wailed for soothing!
Oh, how he wanted it! Still, all those months of battling had not been without result. The rigid fight he had made carried him on, even in face of his resolve to yield, and he delayed, put it off just a moment—lying to himself!
He turned back to the game.
"Sit in, VB?" one of the players asked.
"Don't mind."
He dragged another chair to the table, unbuttoned and cast off his jumper, gave the hat another low tug, and tossed a yellow-backed twenty to the table. The chips were shoved toward him.
"Jacks or better," the dealer said, and shot the cards about the board.
VB won a pot. He bet eagerly on the next and lost. Then he won again. The game interested him for the moment.
"Oh, just one more li'l' drink!" cried the garrulous cowboy at the bar.
VB had passed the opening, went in later, drew three cards, failed to help his tens, and hiked the bet! Called, he dropped the hand; and the winner, showing aces up, stared at the boy who had bet against openers on lone tens. He noticed that VB's hands trembled, and he wondered. He could not feel VB's throat. Nor could he hear the careless plea of the sotted rider for just one more drink ringing in VB's burning brain.
A big pot was played and the winner, made happy, said:
"Well, I'll buy a drink."
The bartender, hearing, came to the table.
"What'll it be?" he asked.
"Whisky," said the man on VB's right, and the word went around the circle.
Then a moment's pause, while the cards fluttered out.
"VB?"
There it was, reaching out for him, holding out its tentacles that ceased to appear as such and became soft, inviting arms. It was that for which he had ridden through the night; it was that against which he had fought month after month until, this night, he realized that a fight was useless; it was the one solace left him, for indirectly it had brought into his life the glorious thing—and wiped it out again. So why hold off? Why refuse?
But those months of fighting! He could not overcome that impetus which his subjective self had received from the struggle. Consciously he wanted the stuff—oh, how he wanted it! But deep in himsomething—
"Not now—thanks," he managed to mutter, and clasped his cards tightly.
The bartender turned away, rubbing his chin with one finger, as though perplexed. VB dealt, and with lightning agility. He even broke in on the silence of the playing with senseless chatter when the drinks were brought. He held his cards high that he might not see the glasses, and was glad that the men did not drink at once. Nor did they drink for many moments. The opener was raised twice; few cards were drawn. A check passed one man, the next bet, the next raised, and VB, the deal, came in.
The opener raised again and the bartender, seeing, stepped across to watch. The drowsy lounger, sensing the drift of the game, rose to look on.
VB dropped out. He held threes, but felt that they had no place in that game. The betting went on and on, up and up, three men bent on raising, the fourth following, intent on having a look, anyhow. VB threw his cards down and dropped his hands loosely on the table. The back of his right hand touched a cold object. He looked down quickly. It was resting against a whisky glass.
"And ten more," a player said.
"Ten—and another ten." More chips rattled into the pile.
His hand stole back and hot fingers reached out to touch with sensitive tips that cool surface. His nostrils worked to catch the scent of the stuff. His hand was around the glass.
"I'm staying."
"You are—for five more."
VB's fingers tightened about the thing, squeezed it in the palm of his hand. It had felt cool at first; now it was like fire. The muscles of that arm strove to lift it. His inner mind struggled, declared against the intention, weakened, yielded, and—
"Well, I'm through. Fight it out."
The man at VB's right dropped his cards in disgust and with a quick movement reached for his drink.
His nervous, hot hand closed on VB's and their surprised glances met.
"Excuse me," muttered VB.
"Sure!" said the other, surly over his lost stake, and gulped down the whisky.
Two of the players went broke in that pot. The fourth had a scant remnant of his original stack left, and VB was loser. The two who had failed shoved back their hats and yawned, almost simultaneously.
"How about it?" asked the winner, stacking his chips.
"I'm satisfied," said the man at VB's right.
"And VB?"
"Here, too!"
The boy sat back in his chair with a long-drawn breath after shoving his chips across to be cashed. He pushed his hat back for the first time, and a man across the table stared hard as he saw the harried face. The others were busy, cashing in.
"Just get in, VB?" some one asked.
He heard the question through a tumult. His muscles had already contracted in the first movement of rising; his will already directed his feet across the room to the bar to answer the call of those searching bottle eyes. Inwardly he raged at himself for holding off so long, for wasting those months, for letting that other new thing come into his life only to be torn away again; when it all meant mere delay, a drawing out of suffering! Only half consciously he framed the answer:
"Yes, I rode down to-night."
"Goin' on out?"
"What?" he asked, forcing his mind to give heed to the other.
"Goin' on out, or goin' to hang around a while?"
"I don't know." The boy got to his feet, and the reply was given with rare bitterness. "I don't know," he said again, voice mounting. "I may go out—and I may not. I may hang around a while, and it mayn't take long. I'm here to finish something I started a long time ago, something that I've been putting off. I'm going to put a stop to a lying, hypocritical existence. I'm—"
He broke off thickly and moved away from the table.
No imagination created a hush this time. On his words the counting of chips ceased. They looked at him, seeing utter desperation, and not understanding.
A face outside that had been pressed close to a window was lowered, darkness hiding the glitter of green eyes and the leering smile of triumph. A figure slunk along carefully to the corner of the building and joined two others.
It was his chance! Rhues was out to get his man this moonlight night, and there was now no danger. Young VB was no longer afraid to take a drink. He would give up his fight, give up his hard-wrung freedom, and when drunken men go down, shot in a quarrel, there is always cause. He had him now!
VB lurched across the room toward the bar. In mid-floor he paused, turned, and faced those at the poker table.
"Don't mistake me," he said with a grin. "Don't think I'm talking against any man in the country. It's myself, boys—justme. I'm the liar, the hypocrite. I've tried to lie myself into being what I never can be. I've come out here among you to go by the name of the outfit I ride for. You don't know me, don't even know my name, say nothing of my own rotten self. Well, you're going to know me as I am."
He swung around to face the bar. The bartender pulled nervously on his mustache.
"What'll it be, VB?" he asked, surprised knowledge sending the professional question to his lips.
"The first thing you come to," the boy muttered, and grasped the bar for support.
Out in the shadow of the building three men huddled close together, talking in whispers—Rhues, Matson, and the Mexican. Rhues had watched the progress of the poker game, waiting the chance he had tried to seek out ever since that day up at Avery's when he had been beaten down by the flailing fists of that tall young tenderfoot. He had seen VB start for the bar; he knew the hour had struck.
"We've got him!" he whispered. "He won't get away this time. They won't be no mistakes."
"S-s-s-s!" the Greaser warned.
"Aw, nobody'll ever know," Rhues scoffed in an undertone. "They'll never know that unless you spill. An' if you do—it'll mean three of us to th' gallows, unless—we're lynched first!"
Silence a moment, and they heard VB's voice raised. Then Rhues whispered his quick plans.
"Take it easy," he warned in conclusion. "Don't start nothin'. Let him git drunk; then he'll do th' startin' an' it'll be easy."
Inside a bottle was thumped on the bar, a glass beside it. Feverishly VB reached for both, lifting the glass with uncertain hand, tilting the bottle from the bar, not trusting his quaking muscles to raise it. The neck touched the glass with a dull clink; the mouth of the bottle gurgled greedily as the first of the liquor ran out—for all the world as if it had waited these months for that chuckle of triumph.
And then that romanticism of youth came to the surface of his seething thoughts again. It would be the closing of a chapter, that drink. It was for her sake he would lift it to his lips. He wanted to bid her a last, bitter farewell. She was over there, far across the hills, sleeping and dreaming—with her golden hair—over there in the northeast. He laughed harshly, set the bottle back on the bar, and turned his face in her direction.
Those who watched from the other end of the room saw him turn his head unsteadily; saw the sudden tenseness which spread through his frame, stiffening those faltering knees. He turned slowly toward the door and thrust his face forward as though to study and make certain that he saw rightly.
Like a rush of fire the realization swept through him. A man stood there in the moonlight, and the sheen from the heavens was caught on the dull barrel of a gun in his hand.
VB was covered, and he knew by whom! The man who had fought less than half a dozen times in his life, and then with bare fists, was the object of a trained gun hand. He could almost see the glitter of the green eyes that were staring at him.
Instinct should have told him to spring to one side; a leap right or left would have carried him out of range, but instinct had been warped by all those months of struggle.
He was on the brink, at the point of losing his balance; but the battling spirit within him still throbbed, though his frenzy, his lack of faith, had nearly killed it. Now the thing came alive pulsing, bare!
An instant before he had not cared what happened. Now he did, and the end was not the only thing in view; the means counted with Young VB.
He did not jump for shelter. He roared his rage as he prepared to stand and fight.
The others understood before his hand reached his shirt front. The bartender dropped behind the fixture and the others in the room sprang behind the barrels and stove. By the time VB's hand had clasped the neck of his shirt he stood alone. When the vicious yank he gave the garment ripped it open from throat halfway to waist the first belch of fire came from that gun out there.
The bottle on the bar exploded, fine bits of glass shooting to the far corners of the room.
"Come on—you—yellow—"
VB's fingers found the butt of his Colt, closed and yanked. It came from the holster, poised, muzzle upward, his thumb over the hammer. Possibly he stood thus a tenth part of a second, but while he waited for his eyes to focus well a generation seemed to parade past. He was hunted down by a crawling piece of vermin!
A parallel sprang to his mind. While Rhues sought his body did not another viper seek his soul? Was—
Then he made out the figure—crouched low. The forty-five came down, and the room resounded with its roar. He stood there, a greenhorn who had never handled a weapon in his life until the last year, giving battle to a gun fighter whose name was a synonym!
Out of the moonlight came another flash, and before VB could answer the hunched figure had leaped from the area framed by the doorway.
"You won't stand!" the boy cried, and strode across the room.
"Don't be a fool! VB!"
The bartender's warning might as well have been unheard. Straight for the open door went the boy, gun raised, coughing from the powder smoke. But the mustached man, though panderer by profession, revolted at unfairness; perhaps it was through the boy's ignorance, but he knew VB walked only to become a target. Twice his gun roared from behind the bar and the two swinging lamps became scattered, tinkling fragments.
VB seemed not to heed, not to notice that he was in darkness. He reached the door, put his left hand against the casing, and looked out. With lights behind he would have been riddled on the instant. But, looking from blackness to moonlight, he was invisible for the moment—but only for a moment.
The stream of yellow stabbed at him again and Young VB, as though under the blow of a sledge, spun round and was flattened against the wall.
His left breast seemed to be in flames. He reached for it, fired aimlessly with the other hand in the direction of his hidden foe, and let the gun clatter to the floor.
He wondered if it were death—that darkness. He felt the fanning of the wind, heard, dimly, its uneasy soughing. It was very dark.
A movement and its consequent grip of pain brought him back. He saw then that a heavy cloud, wind driven, had blotted out the moon. In a frenzy he came alert! He was wounded! He had dropped his gun and they were waiting for him out there, somewhere; waiting to finish him!
He could feel the smearing of blood across his chest as his clothing held it in. His legs commenced to tremble, from true physical weakness this time.
And the Captain was waiting!
That thought wiped out every other; he was possessed with it. He might be dying, but if he could only get to the Captain; if he could only feel that silken nose against his cheek! Nothing would matter then.
If he could get up, if he could mount, the Captain would take care of him. He could outrun those bullets—the Captain. He would take him home, away from this inferno.
"I'm coming, Captain!" he muttered brokenly. "You're waiting! Oh, I know where to find you. I'm coming, boy, coming!"
He stepped down from the doorway and reeled, a hand against his wounded breast. It seemed as though it required an eternity to regain his balance. Then he lurched forward a step. Oh, they were merciless! They opened on him from behind—when he had no weapon, when his life was gushing away under his shirt! Those shots never came from one gun alone. More than one man fired on him!
His salvation then was flight. He ran, staggering, stumbling. He plunged forward on his face and heard a bullet scream over him.
"Oh, Captain!" he moaned. "Can't you come and get me? Can't you?"
He snarled his determination to rally those senses that tried to roam off into vagaries. He got to his hands and knees and crawled, inch by inch. He heard another shot, but it went wild. He got to his feet and reeled on. They thought they'd done for him when he fell! He heard himself laughing crazily at the joke.
"Oh, you'll laugh, too—Captain!" he growled. "It's a joke—you'll—if I can only get to—you!"
His numb, lagging legs seemed to make conscious efforts to hold him back. His head became as heavy as his feet and rolled about on his neck, now straight forward, now swinging from side to side. His arms flopped as no arm ever should flop. And he heard the blood bubbling under his vest. Perhaps he would never get there! Perhaps he was done for!
"Oh, no—I can't quit before—I get to—you, Captain!" he muttered as he fell again. "You're waiting—where I told you to wait! I've got to—get—there!"
Of only one thing in this borderland between consciousness and insensibility was he certain—the Captain was waiting. The Captain was waiting! If he could get that far— It was the climax of all things. To reach his horse; to touch him; to put his arms about those ankles as he fell and hold them close; to answer trust with trust. For through all this the Captain had waited!
The shack where he had left the horse swam before his eyes. He heard the breath making sounds in his throat as he crawled on toward it, counting each hand-breadth traveled an achievement. He tried to call out to the horse, but the words clogged and he could not make his voice carry.
"Just a moment, boy!" he whispered. "Only—a moment longer—then you won't have—to wait!"
He was conscious again that his pursuers fired from behind. It was moonlight once more, and they could see him as he reeled on toward the shack. He sprawled again as his foot met a stone, and the guns ceased to crash.
But VB did not think on this more than that instant. He found no comfort in the cessation of firing. For him, only one attainable object remained in life. He wanted to be with the thing of which he was certain, away from all else—to know a faith was justified; to sense once again stability!
His hand struck rough wood. He strained his eyes to make out the tumble-down structure rising above him.
"Captain!" he called, forcing his voice up from a whisper. "Come—boy, I'm—ready—to go—home!"
Clinging to the logs, he raised himself to his feet and swayed in through the door.
"Captain," he muttered, closing his eyes almost contentedly and waiting. "Captain?"
He started forward in alarm, a concern mounting through his torture and dimming his sensibilities.
"Captain—are you—here?"
He stumbled forward, arms outstretched in the darkness, feeling about the space. He ran into a wall; turned, met another.
"Captain!" he cried, his voice mounting to a ranting cry.
The Captain was gone!
Reason for keeping on slipped from VB's mind. He needed air, so his reflexes carried him through the doorway again, out of the place where he had left the stallion, out of the place where his trust had been betrayed. He stumbled, recovered his balance, plunged on out into the moonlight, into the brush, sobbing heavily. His knees failed. He crashed down, face plowing into cool soil.
"Captain"! he moaned. "Oh, boy—I didn't think—youwould—fail— No wonder—I couldn't keep—going—"
He did not hear the running feet, did not know they rolled him over, Rhues with his gun upraised.
"I got him, th' ——" he muttered.
"Then let's get out—pronto!"
Twenty minutes later a man with a lantern stepped out of the shack in which the Captain had stood. Two others were with him.
"Yes, he left his horse there, all right," the man with the light muttered. "He got to him an' got away. Nobody else could lead that horse off. He couldn't 'a' been hard hit or he couldn't 'a' got up."