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The rider shot down the street, swung out of one stirrup, and rested all this weight on the other; then, when his pony flung back on braced legs, still traveling with great speed, he leaped down and ran up the steps to the hotel. His eyes were shining. He whipped off his hat and beat the dust from the crown against his leg, a great cloud of it rolling lazily down the wind.
"Boys," he cried, "what d'you think's up? Old Steve Bennett's new man has come to town!"
This announcement was greeted with such a roar of cheers that even Ronicky Doone turned his head. He was seated at the far end of the veranda, stretched low in his chair and so posed that the keen, hot sunshine fell upon all of him, saving one shoulder and his head, above which his arms were thrown for greater ease. He was taking a sun bath which might have set a lizard boiling, but Ronicky Doone enjoyed every instant of it. As he turned he literally flashed with color, turning from sunlight into shadow. For Ronicky was one of those dandies of the mountain desert who adopted the gaudiness of the Spanish-Indian habits. No band but one of carved gold could surround his sombrero. No ready-made boot could surround his ankles and slope with glove-fitted smoothness about his feet The red of his bandanna was glowing scarlet and of the purest silk. Silk also was his shirt, though of a heavier and coarser make. What vain, and almost womanly, vanity had made him have such gloves worked to order? The leather was as thin as a fine tissue, it seemed, and clothed his hand so that it hardly impeded the movement of the fingers in flexing. Even his cartridge belt, that symbol of all the grimmer side of the cow business, could not be allowed to remain as it had come from its maker. No, the webbing must needs be taken to some Mexican silver worker who wrought upon it, with infinite patience and skill, figures of birds and beasts and the strange flowers of cacti.
He stretched himself in the shadow now, as if he enjoyed the coolness fully as much as he had enjoyed the heat. He showed, as he turned, a rather lean, handsome face, dark of skin and hair and eyes and with a singularly youthful look. The strangeness of those youthful lines came out of the contrast with a certain weariness which, now and again, dulled his eyes. Just as one was about to write him down as a half-breed for his luxurious laziness and his olive skin, one caught a glimpse of that time-tired look in his eyes, and there was a suggestion of sadness beyond words.
It came and went in his face, however, so quickly that the observer could not be entirely sure. So he lounged in his chair, for he had appropriated to his uses the only long wicker chair in that vast county. It creaked with shrill voices whenever he stirred.
As for the rider who had dismounted in such haste to rush upon the hotel veranda with the tidings that old Steve Bennett's new man had come to town, he had stepped back, laughing and still dusting clouds out of his sombrero and nodding his head to affirm his tidings, as the cow-punchers yelled.
"It's the blond-headed kid," he repeated. "He's come in to look us over, maybe."
This remark provoked a yet heartier chorus of mirth, and Ronicky Doone thrust himself slowly into a more erect position.
"Who's the blond-headed kid?" he asked. "And who's Bennett?"
Now, as a rule, people west of the Rockies avoid direct questions and prefer to learn by inference and by patient waiting. He who bluntly asked to find out what he wishes to know, instead of trailing the information stealthily to the ground, is usually put down as a greenhorn; or else he is an established man with a known reputation, a man born and bred in the West and possessed of sufficient fame to free him from the danger of being put down as a blockhead.
The man to whom Ronicky Doone had put the question had never seen his face before that day, nevertheless, no matter to what other conclusions he may have come, he decided that the olive-skinned youth was not a tenderfoot. The smile of cold derision and aloofness faded instantly from his lips, and he returned: "You're new to these parts, I reckon?"
"I'm plumb new," admitted Ronicky.
"Bennett is the old gent tried to put Al Jenkins out of business thirty years back. But now Jenkins has come back after making a stake in Alaska gold. He sunk that gold right back in the oil range land, bought in the acres that Bennett had robbed him of, and now he's giving Bennett some of his own medicine. And Bennett don't like it. This blond-headed kid— well, I dunno. Every now and then Bennett gets some new hands, and they try to hold down jobs for a while on the ranch, but sooner or later they got to come to town. Well, partner, when they come to town they meet up with the boys, and the boys give 'em a pretty rough ride. You watch the way they handle 'Blondy' when he sails in. Maybe he'll sashay into town as a peacock, but before he leaves Twin Springs I reckon some of the starch will be took out of him!"
He twisted himself from side to side in the ecstasy of his emotion.
"Yes sir, something is sure going to happen to that gun fighter!"
"Gunfighter?" echoed Ronicky. "You know this Blondy, then?"
"Sure I don't. But I know that everybody out on Bennett's ranch has to know that when they wander into Twin Springs they're going to have a rough ride. And the ones that come in, come because they're all set for the party. They know well that the man that can ride into Twin Springs off'n the ranch of old Steve Bennett and get out without having his guns and his spurs took from him, is quite some party!"
He set his teeth to prove the strength of his own convictions on the matter.
"Why," continued Ronicky, forced to raise his voice because of the gathering clamor, as new men came out from the interior of the hotel to hear the tidings, "why should the whole town be agin Bennett and for Al Jenkins?"
"That's easy," responded his informant "It works this way. The money that Al Jenkins sunk into Twin Springs is what brung it to life. You'd ought to have seen this here town a few years back. Any respectable junk dealer would have laughed himself to death if he'd been asked to make a bid on it. There wasn't a piece of a board in it that wasn't rotten. There wasn't a nail that wasn't rusted in two. Why? Just because the old toll road had been allowed to go bust. That's why! When the railroad picked out The Falls as the place it was going to run through, why everybody in Twin Springs just sat down and folded their hands and said: 'Here's where we slip off the map and get all rubbed out!'
"And that's what was happening, too. Twin Springs done just that same thing. It begun to die like a tree when the taproot's cut. The old toll road was allowed to go to pieces. The rains of a couple of winters put a crimp in that roadbed and made every teamster take chances on cross-country rather than use the old toll road from here to The Falls.
"Well, then along comes old Al Jenkins that Bennett had run out of the country a half lifetime before. What did he do? Did he sit down and fold his hands in his lap like the rest of 'em? No, sir!
"'If the old town is dead,' he says, 'we'll bring the old town back to life,' says he.
"And that is what he's done, just as sure as if you'd read about him in the Bible. He climbed down into his purse and come up covered with gold and greenbacks. He spilled money everywhere, and everything that money touched turned green and begun to put out shoots like springtime. Yes, sir, he was like irrigation. Old Al Jenkins, the first thing he done, was to send out a gang to work on the toll road, and he got that back into better shape than it ever was before. It cost a sight of money but he slicked it up as smooth as glass. He got all the old-timers that had used to team on it before the railroad went through, and he got them to tell him every good feature of the old road. After they'd told him, he went ahead and fixed up this road just the same and better. He got it so good that not a one of the old boys could drive over it without admitting that that road couldn't give a man a bump in the worst wagon that was ever made.
"And when the road was fixed, Twin Springs begin to come to life. The railroad went to The Falls, sure, and so Glendon Falls now is a real city. But we ain't dead any more, no, sir. We're alive and coming! Look down the street. You see all those new houses? Well, they mean new folks and folks with money and folks that are making more money and spending it right where they make it, improving Twin Springs, all because Al Jenkins has put faith in 'em that Twin Springs means good business next year as well as this year. Yes, sir, the railroad is a long way off, and stuff has to be hauled to it, and Twin Springs is a good halfway point. So they all stop here. There's blacksmith shops for shoeing the hosses and fixing the wagons; and there's saddle stores and harness shops; and there's them two eating houses. And— well, everywhere along the line you'll see the signs of what Al Jenkins has done for the town."
"And he done it all for charity?" asked Ronicky Doone.
"Why should he do it for charity?" asked his companion hotly. "No, sir. What he done was to show his faith by buying up a lot of the old folks around here that had let the town die on their hands and the result is now that he owns pretty near all of the ground that the town is built on and—"
"H'm," chuckled Ronicky Doone. "I call it good business, partner."
"I call it public spirit!" asserted the other stoutly. Apparently that was the interpretation which the townsmen and those from the adjacent country wished to place upon the conduct of old Al Jenkins, and it was folly to argue with them. This man's eye lighted to fiery earnestness the moment he suspected that the intentions of Jenkins were being questioned. And Ronicky at once shrugged his shoulder and turned his head away. It made small difference to him what the opinions of this or any other man in the town might be on this or any other subject, but, just as he was sliding back into his old mental languor, he heard the voices near him hushed, and then a warning murmur: "Watch yourselves, now. Here comes Blondy. Make out that you don't know who he is or where he come from."
Unable to remain indifferent when such a crisis had come, Ronicky turned his head again to observe.
What he saw was a youth in his early twenties, riding jauntily down the exact center of the street, sitting his pony straight and tall, with one hand dropped in careless self-assurance on his hip and the broad brim of his sombrero furling back from his face. It was a handsome, clean-cut face. The sun and wind had tanned him deepest brown, and out of the tan looked two clear eyes, ready to exchange glances with any one in the world.
His horse, also, though hardly above the average diminutive stature of cow ponies, was rather smaller in the head and more shapely of neck and quarters than the general run of such animals. This was one point on which Ronicky Doone was an expert. He read the capabilities of a horse at a glance, just as some master minds are able to penetrate to the character of other men. And this horse he knew to be a speedster of the first water. Instinctively his glance turned to the side where his own mare stood under the shed, a silken-flanked bay running to black points and with a white-starred forehead. As if she felt the power of his glance, she jerked up her head and whinnied to him softly. He replied with a low whistle which, it seemed, contented her as much as speech would have contented a human being. For she lowered her head again and resumed her occupation of worrying at some shreds of grass.
Ronicky looked back. The youth had brought his horse to a halt before the hotel and was now making a pretense, having dismounted, at tethering the animal. Yet it was only a pretense, as Ronicky's accurate eye could see. The reins were wrapped around and around the crossbar, but they were not slipped one above the other to form a fast knot. One strong jerk was all that was needed to free those reins and set the horse at liberty to run.
Plainly, then, the blond-headed rider expected that he might have need of making a quick exit from the village. Mentally Ronicky Doone sat up. When both sides were prepared for mischief, it would be strange indeed, considering the metal of which they were made, if the sparks did not fly.
Blondy was a big fellow, strongly made around the shoulders, narrow of hips, long and lean of legs— in short, the beau ideal of the cow-puncher who must live so large a portion of his life in the saddle. Ronicky himself, an athlete from his head to his feet, looked with suspicion upon such a build, but he knew it was the height of good opinion.
The moment Blondy turned from his horse Ronicky knew that the youngster had courage. His head was still high. His cheek had blanched a little, to be sure, as he approached the long line of prospective enemies, but his eye was still bold and unabashed. And he walked with an unshortened stride.
And something about him— his youth, his boldness— appealed strongly to Ronicky. He lunged forward until he was erect, sitting lightly on the very edge of his chair and ready to jump into action in any direction.
Whether the courage of the stranger was the courage of mere dare-deviltry which makes a man ready in taking up a dare, for instance, he could not guess. But something told him that it was well for Blondy that the test he was meeting was merely to pass through the village rather than one which demanded a long stay under fire in it. There was something immensely attractive in this proposition to Ronicky. If Blondy could stay here on the veranda of the hotel for the length of time needed to pass a few words about the weather, for instance, and then step back to his horse and ride on out of town, all would be well. He would have accomplished the thing which the men of Twin Springs had sworn that no hired man of Bennett could ever do.
But, before he had been ten seconds on that veranda, it was very probable that about twenty different kinds of trouble would start happening to the tall cow-puncher.
He advanced magnificently up the steps, however, waving his hand in careless good cheer to the waiting line. And when he reached the top of the steps he said to the nearest man, smiling: "Mighty hot day, partner, eh?"
Much, much would depend upon the manner in which that question was answered. If the person addressed acquiesced with a nod, all was well. But he might make some impertinent answer which, to be sure, would draw danger upon his own head, but which would also insure him the enlisted support of all the other men on either side of him. Ronicky listened breathlessly.
The man addressed was little. He was wiry and sun-dried in appearance. And he had two yellow streaks of mustaches which dripped down past his mouth. He took some moments in answering.
"I dunno," he said at last. "It might be hot to some and cold to others. But I always been taught: If you don't like a place, leave it!"
This had been uttered in the unmistakable accent. It was surcharged with scorn. But the important point was that the old man had not been able to find a remark stinging enough to force Blondy into a sharp retort which, in turn, would have precipitated action of one kind or another. The best that the old cow-puncher had been able to find in his mental armory had been a remark which might have its point turned in the manner in which it was taken, and this was exactly what Blondy proceeded to do. He took off his hat, nodded, and laughed good-naturedly.
"That's just what I've done, you see," he said. "I was hot in the sun, so I've come into the shade."
And so saying, he slowly and deliberately turned his back upon the other and stood resting one shoulder against a pillar of the porch.
It had been very well done, Ronicky decided, Blondy had acquitted himself with just the right edge to his voice. He had not been sickeningly acquiescent. Neither had he been stupidly defiant. But with a nice twist of the wrist he had avoided the full brunt of danger and still retained his dignity. And now, behold, his broad back was turned full upon the others!
The beauty of this maneuver actually filled Ronicky with awe. It was, he decided, perfect. They could not strike a man from behind. Neither could they find it very easy to think up insulting things to say to that same back. Ronicky Doone clasped his hands around his knees and rocked himself back and forth in a silent ecstasy. He was delighted.
And now he saw Blondy slowly produce cigarette papers and tobacco. He saw the cigarette manufactured; he saw it placed between Blondy's lips; he saw the sulphur match separated carefully from the rest of the pack; he saw the cigarette lighted; he saw the handsome head of Blondy wreathed in thin blue-brown smoke.
And every other person on the veranda was following every act with similar exactitude of interest and observation. For they had instantly seen the throwing of the gage. The unspoken challenge of Blondy, as plain as words could have stated it, was this: "I shall stand here calmly upon the veranda, roll my cigarette, light and smoke it, and then depart. And if I am able to do this in peace, then I shall consider myself at liberty to go forth into the world and tell other men that I have bearded the citizens of Twin Springs and come off unscathed."
This was all understood. Not only that, but it drew a scowl of rage from the stupidest of the men on the veranda. They were challenged, and yet they knew not how to rise to meet the challenge. Of course some one could arise and, striding forward, shout an insult. But this would make Blondy, if he were half of the man that he seemed to be, whirl upon his heel and pump a stream of leaden slugs at the other. And gun play was not what was desired. The rules of the game required that Blondy should be taken in hand and disciplined for his folly. But the rules also required that he should not be fatally injured unless he really made himself obnoxious. Certainly that should not be done when such tremendous odds were arrayed against him.
The quandary grew. The perspiration poured down the faces of those horny-handed sons of battle. Not a man there but would have sooner died than be shamed. But would could they do?
Ronicky Doone, fairly quivering with excitement, leaned forward and scanned the line of faces. He saw hands go convulsively back and grasp at gun butts and then drop, as though ashamed of the impulse. He saw jaws thrusting out, as the rage for battle grew. But still there did not arise any young Napoleon to show them the manner in which they should strike in honor. One giant-limbed cow-puncher half arose from his chair, as though about to stride up to Blondy and call to him to turn.
His shadow fell across the feet of Blondy, and Ronicky saw the hand of the youth tremble, so that the thin line of smoke rising from the tobacco quivered also. He was afraid, but it was no wonder. If the test were hard on the many, how stern it must be for the one?
But the big man settled back in his chair with a fault sigh and a great creaking of the chair, as it felt his weight. And now the cigarette was half consumed!
"Good boy!" thought Ronicky. "Keep it up!"
He literally hurled the strength of his good will as a guardian cloud around the form of Blondy. He shifted a little, so that his holster hung well clear of the edge of his chair. If any one should make a mistake and attempt to take a cowardly advantage of the fact that Blondy's back was turned— well, the mistake would never be regretted, because the man would not live to repeat!
But there was no question of fair play. The cow-punchers were simply combing the air for a courteous means of making Blondy turn upon them. But if they could not find that, they would not bully him into a fight. The cigarette, however, which was the time match of that strange trial, was now almost burned out, and in an excess of careless confidence Blondy stretched out his hand and snapped the cigarette with his middle finger.
Alas, he struck it too hard. Not only were the ashes jarred off, but the burning tobacco was loosened from the paper as well, and it dropped to the floor of the veranda and fumed there. Not only that, but the loose tobacco also streamed from the butt and left only a seared, fluttering wisp of paper in the fingers of the big man.
The crisis had come. Would he dare to wait to roll another cigarette? Or would his little accident give the slow-witted cow-punchers a clew to some means of baiting Blondy?
He had not long to wait before there was an answer to the question. The big man who had first risen, as though about to stride up to Blondy and attack him, now sat forward again. No word had risen in his dull brain, but he contrived to bring forth an immense laugh which fairly shook the pillars supporting the veranda. More than all, that laughter broke the spell. It dissolved the bewilderment of the other cow-punchers and made them capable of action. It roused their brains until they could function smoothly once more.
"Hey!" cried a man directly behind Blondy. "Hey, big fellow!"
Blondy did not turn, did not answer. Instead he drew forth cigarette papers and tobacco, and again the heart of Ronicky Doone went out to him. He was taking the hardest way out. He was going to try to stay there on the veranda until he had smoked a second cigarette clear down to the butt.
"He don't know his name!" called another cow-puncher cheerily. "Ring a bell for him. Maybe that'll bring him."
"Maybe he's like a hoss— he sleeps standing!"
But these rough jests apparently had no effect upon Blondy. He took out a cigarette paper. He held it with thumb and forefinger ready to sift the tobacco into it. The tobacco fell in a small brown stream, some grains caught by the heavy, warm wind and sent winking away through the sunshine and into the shadow to the feet of Ronicky Doone. And he felt as though they bore a message and an appeal to him, as the one fair-minded human being present. But how long could it be before big Blondy was forced by the taunts to turn and face the crowd, or else lose his honor and self-respect by enduring the baiting? And, once he turned, they would probably make for him and swamp him in a real old-fashioned rough-house.
Yet his nerve was iron, this tall, yellow-haired youth! He stood as jauntily, as easily as ever. For only that one instant had his self-control been shaken, when he struck the other cigarette too strongly and knocked off both ash and fire. Now his hands were steady again.
Ronicky saw the cord of the tobacco sack caught between the teeth of Blondy and the top of the sack pulled shut. He saw the tobacco and the papers stowed away in the shirt-breast pocket. And now with a deft twist the cigarette was rolled. Ah, but just as Ronicky felt like cheering, came a second calamity. Those fingers were under a hard-forced control. They tore the paper in a deep rent. In vain Blondy strove to moisten the paper so that it would hold. For when he lighted the cigarette, it refused to draw, and presently from the torn place a few grains of tobacco fell.
It brought another roar of laughter from the big aggressive puncher.
"What sort of a puncher are you, bud?" he bellowed. "Ain't you been raised to roll your own? Hey, gents, here's one that was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had a greaser hired to roll his smokes for him, he did! Ha, ha, ha!"
Again he roared with laughter, joined by the entire assemblage on the veranda, and Blondy turned suddenly on his heel. And when he turned his face was a revelation. It was as gray as dust. The mouth and the eyes were framed in deeply incised lines. That mouth was pressed straight, and the eyes were shadowed by beetling brows. All the energy of Blondy had been exhausted in fighting the silent battle, with his back turned to the crowd. And now his strength was gone. He was weak. The only way he could maintain his honor was by rushing instantly into action. If be waited any longer he was afraid that he would become a trembling coward.
And Ronicky Doone, who had seen men crushed and made worthless vagabonds through mental pressure alone, set his teeth at the sight of Blondy's face. Even the cow-punchers along the veranda sensed that the matter had passed beyond the realm of horseplay and tomfoolery. There was a sudden change. Tragedy was in the air. Every laugh stopped short. Now, if Blondy had been calm, all trouble could have been averted. But he was not calm. He dared not wait any longer. He was afraid of what he himself would do, and that is the most horrible fear in the world. It makes men run from a shadow; and it makes men storm forts.
"And I'd like to know," cried Blondy, "what in thunder all this talk and this laughing is about! Can anybody tell me?"
No one answered. But there was a settling forward in the chairs, as every man there came to the swift and melancholy realization that this affair must end in disaster. Open insults were being cast in the face of the town of Twin Springs. Such things could not be tolerated.
"You, there," went on Blondy, pointing out the big man. "Seems to me that I've heard you make some kind of remark while my back was turned. Well, it ain't turned any more. I'm looking right at you, friend, and I'm waiting to hear when you talk up. Am I going to have to listen long?"
The big man did not stir. At last he sighed. Was he going to back out of the quarrel? Ronicky Doone and the others looked with sick anxiety at him, for it is easier to watch a man die than to watch him accepting a shame. But the big man was not going to be shamed. It was needless for his neighbor on the right to whisper: "Great guns, Oliver Hopkins, say something!"
For instantly he spoke: "I sure dunno why you're talking to me, you nester. What you mean by talking up loud while they's growed men around?"
"Growed men around?" cried Blondy, trembling with anger, as the fear was convened into fighting rage, to which he gave the rein until it galloped. "Growed men around? Why, I ain't seen that kind of men around these parts. They tell me that they don't have that kind of men around this town of Twin Springs!"
It had come. There was no turning from that remark. It had to be answered with the pulling of a gun. Ronicky Doone marked the companions of the big man drawing away to the right or the left, to keep clear of the bullets when they flew. And he decided that he would do his best to stop the murder, or murders, before they took place. He rose and stepped between the two combatants, turning his back to the big man and his face to Blondy.
"Blondy," he said, "I guess this here has gone about far enough. There ain't any need in you two boys making a killing party out of what ought to be only a joke!"
He was a slender, boyish figure standing between those two mighty men of war, as Oliver Hopkins rose from his chair to confront Blondy. But though the spirit of the whole group had been expressed by Ronicky Doone, it was by no means possible to stop Blondy's course of anger through mere words. He was wild with rage.
"And who in hell are you?" he roared at Ronicky.
"A gent that means well by you, Blondy," said Ronicky gently.
"You talk too smooth to mean well by anybody. You sat back there and laughed at me a minute ago."
"I didn't laugh at anyone," said Ronicky; and though he set his jaw, he continued to smile.
"You lie," said Blondy.
Would Ronicky Doone draw a gun? No, no, he was no hair-trigger man-killer to shoot at the first opportunity. He merely raised a protesting hand.
"You can do the talking now, Blondy," he said. "You and me can find plenty of time to argufy about these things later on. Right now we had ought to talk hoss sense, and hoss sense means for you to sit down and me to—"
But the big man felt that he was being stifled with words. He brushed all kindness away.
"I don't know you," he roared. "Who are you?"
"Ronicky Doone," said Ronicky.
At that announcement two or three of the watchers pricked up their heads and gasped. But the name had no influence with Blondy. He merely shook his big head and scowled more heavily than before.
"Get out of my way," cried Blondy. "These boys want something out of me, and they're going to get it. They've been raising trouble too long, right here in Twin Springs. It's about time that somebody stepped up and asked 'em what was what. And I'm the gent to do it. Stand out of the way, Doone, or I'll knock you out of the way!"
"Blondy!" pleaded Ronicky.
"Curse you, then. Take it!" shouted the madman and smashed out with his great right fist, a blow made quick as the stroke of a snake's head by the loosing of his power of anger. In vain Ronicky Doone cast up a guard. The blow smashed through his blocking forearm, brushed that guard aside, and thudded heavily on his forehead. He was bent almost double backward and fell with a shock that made the floor of the veranda shake. And, as he fell, the blow to the back of his head so paralyzed him that he lay stretched out, incapable of movement, but still his mind and his eye were clear.
The striking of the blow had been enough to clear the brain of Blondy. He gasped in amazement at the prostrate form of Ronicky, as though he were waking from a dream. Then he whirled on his heel, strode to his horse, jerked the reins loose, and flung himself into the saddle.
A deep shout of protest and excitement rose from the men on the veranda at this point, half of them clamoring that he should not be permitted to get away, and the other half saying that there would be another day to make up for this, and that there was no need in staining the repute of Twin Springs on account of a fist fight and some foolish words.
They even tried to drag Oliver Hopkins back, as he started forward. But here they could not prevail. Slow to have an idea seep into his mind, he was, nevertheless, sure as death, once he was started. Now he cast away men from either arm and leaped to the ground beyond the veranda, a magnificent figure of a man, straight, sinewy, active in spite of his great bulk.
"Look here," he cried, "nobody can fight my fights for me. I don't need to have anybody do it. Blondy, you got to get off that hoss and talk business to me for what you've done!"
"I'll see you in China first," cried Blondy.
"You've said enough. Blondy, get off that hoss, or I'll—"
He gripped his revolver as he spoke, but before the barrel had been jerked clear there was a wink and flash of steel in the hand of Blondy, as the latter made a lightning draw. The gun exploded, and Hopkins cast up both arms, hurling the revolver far from him. As it fell in a shining arc, Hopkins whirled and toppled forward upon his side. Ronicky, drawing himself up upon one hand, looked down from the edge of the porch and saw the big benumbed face and heard the fallen giant gasping: "It hadn't ought to have happened— it ain't right! It was all because of an accident that—"
And then he fainted.
It caused a yell of mingled horror and anger from the men on the veranda, that revolver shot and that fall. For it so chanced that there was not a man in Twin Springs more popular, and justly so, than Oliver Hopkins. He had been born and raised in the vicinity; and his course of life had been as honest as it was dull and stupid. Half a dozen guns winked in the sunshine to avenge his fall, but they had reckoned without big Blondy.
The latter snapped his cat-footed horse around and shot him about the corner of the building and out of sight as the first brace of wild shots hummed after him harmlessly. The entire crowd lunged for the side of the house to open fire, but, by the time they reached it, Blondy, flattened along the neck of his horse and whipping and spurring for dear life— in all the meaning of that phrase— had placed many a priceless yard between him and the guns of the townsmen.
Instantly they sent a rattling volley after him, but one discharge of shots was all that they could manage; for in the very next instant he had whipped out of sight behind the corner of the first house down the street from the hotel and was sliding away toward security. It seemed incredible that he could have vanished so soon.
A wild rush for the horses and the beginning of the pursuit followed. And, as they swung into the saddles, they saw the familiar form of the bald-headed old doctor run out of the hotel and drop upon his knees by the side of big Hopkins. Then he started up from the fallen man and raised high in the air two hands which were incarnadined.
"He's dead, boys!" he shouted. "Poor Hopkins is dead! Get the skunk that done this!"
And that announcement sent the whole troup away with yells and wails of rage. They had seen a fall, and they had seen crimson stains, and now there was sad need of haste and help for big Blondy. For the best fighting men of a fighting community, mounted upon horses as durable as buckskin, were upon his trail, and a death trail it must prove unless the unprecedented happened.
Ronicky Doone, glancing over his shoulder, saw the gang shoot away into a flurry of dust, man after man swinging into his saddle and plunging away in that direction with a yell, as he got under way. And Ronicky himself drew a deep breath of sobbing rage.
Would they catch him before he arrived? Ronicky hurled the saddle on the back of the bay mare, "Lou." And then the cinches were made literally to fly into place. An instant later he was off, riding like a jockey and calling the name of the mare softly, softly in her ear. Down his face, as he rode, streaked the crimson of the cut on his forehead, where the knuckle of the big man had split the skin. And that crimson stain touched his mouth.
Brushing his face with the back of his hand, he saw the stain and cursed. There are some men whom the sight of their own blood throws into a panic, some whom it horrifies, and others, again, whom it drives into a frenzy of cold rage. And Ronicky Doone was one of the last-named kind. He was ready to kill now. He had attempted his best in the interests of big Blondy, and he had been struck down as a reward for his pains. Moreover, the lightning speed with which Blondy had whipped the gun out of its holster and the sureness of his shot were ample demonstration that he was an expert in the use of the weapon. And the thought of that expertness, instead of appalling Ronicky, filled him with a fierce, warm exaltation. This was game worthy of his own hand, he declared to himself, as he urged Lou forward.
So fast did she shoot down the street, that the cry of men running out of the houses, as she passed, were blurred and mixed together. Once he glanced over his shoulder to see yet others mounting for the pursuit.
Then he plunged out of the town and into the open country with a full view of the chase. What he saw was the horse of Blondy streaking up the trail, with a rapidly increasing advantage, while behind him the posse lost ground at every stride. Ronicky Doone showed his teeth in the fierceness of his satisfaction. He only had one regret, he told himself, as he sent the mare on: that was that the men of the posse would not be near enough to witness the action when he killed this man!
In the meantime, whether a poor rider, or simply overconfident in the ability of his horse, Blondy was sending his fleet pony away at a heartbreaking rate. Perhaps he wished to shake off the crowd at once, so as to be able to double around and cut through the country. But Ronicky laughed exultantly to himself as he held in Lou. There was no need of her bolting away at full speed up this killing grade. Never yet had he seen her speed matched over such country as this. Though there might be horses who could best her on the flat he would challenge the world in a run over hill and dale.
Already the leading horses of the posse began to draw back to him, and when they topped the first long slope rising out of Twin Springs, he was neck and neck with the two leaders. They were two hardy veterans of the cow country, he could tell at a glance, and by their greeting he guessed that they both might have heard of him before, for they called: "Pull your hoss in, Doone. Give us a chance at the fun, too, won't you? Don't hog it all. We're Twin Springs men, and it's up to us to be in at the death."
But, instead of obeying, he merely waved his hand and let Lou drift easily away toward the lead; and so she shot down the road and twisted around the next turn.
The gray pony of Blondy was no longer racing in front. Far to the left down a gulley went the speedy little streak of horseflesh. Lou herself did not relish the plunge in pursuit, but, after shaking her wise head as one in doubt, she dipped over the edge of the ravine and went down, sliding like a dog.
The rest of the riders from Twin Springs milled for a time on the verge of the drop, and then a few began to go over, but they went so slowly, and so many of the horses refused, even when the riders were willing, that Ronicky, glancing back when the opportunity came to him, could see at a glance that the race was ended, except between him and Blondy.
He was in no haste to make up ground going down the sharp declivity. The limbs of Lou were more precious to him than his revenge. And when they came to the killing angle of the far slope, he again let her take her time, talking kindly to her and bidding her find the best way. And she, big heart that she was, alternately laid an ear back to listen to the voice of the master and again pricked it, as she examined her course. She could judge ground with the wisdom of a very Solomon. She knew at a glance, or so it seemed, when a rock might roll under her weight, and when an apparently loose slide of gravel was in reality cemented to solidity. And therefore, of course, she was invaluable to Ronicky in his careless cross-country cuts. For he scorned beaten trails and was accustomed to strike across country with the freedom of a bird picking its way.
Now Lou gained the crest of the slope, and they entered upon better ground beyond. It was still not a well-beaten trail, but it was well enough defined by cattle to give Lou good footing. And here she commenced to gain in real earnest. For the early burst of speed had told sadly upon the wind and strength of the gray pony, and now, though he still ran gallantly and would so run until he dropped, he had not his first fire and edge for a dash. And Lou began to walk up on him, hand over hand. Ronicky Doone began to enjoy the ride for another reason, a rare and a cruel one. He began to feel that it might be amusing to allow this man-killer to trail along a little distance ahead of him, playing with hope, and then to strike him down at last, at the very time when the big man began to feel truly secure. That savage determination grew fixed and strong in the mind of Ronicky. And he checked Lou back and let her creep up on the gray only by inches.
As for the rest of the posse, they were out of sight, out of sound. Indeed, why so bold a man as big Blondy did not turn and give battle to his solitary pursuer, was more than Ronicky could understand unless it might be that the fugitive, not being able to see any distance behind him, made up his mind that Ronicky was only the fore-runner of the rest, and that if he turned to fight there would be a whole cloud of horsemen on him at once.
At least Blondy showed no inclination to turn, but held straight away on his course, sometimes casting hasty glances over his shoulder, always followed by fresh spurring and whipping to drive the brave little gray forward. And still Ronicky gained as he pleased, not in great leaps, but in terrible inches, each inch eating up the distance between them. When would the big man turn?
Blondy had turned into a steep-sided ravine now, with a strong river rushing and roaming in the bottom; the walls were sometimes sheer cliffs of rock, and again they were long slides of gravelly ground. On this heavy going, along an obscure trail which had been eaten away by the action of the river and the weather, the gray began to labor more and more; for the great weight of his rider, combined with the nature of the ground underfoot, placed him under a sad handicap. In five minutes, at any time he wished, Ronicky felt that he could close on the fugitive. And then it was that disaster overtook him, and it came with terrible and startling suddenness. He had darted around a curve in the ravine when the side of a whole bank melted away under his feet, and Lou was pitched down toward the river.
The desperate scrambling of Lou twisted her around so that her head pointed up the bank away from the trail, but that same twist, coming almost instantly after the plunge down and to the side, had the effect of the snapping of a whip. And Ronicky, fine horseman that he was, was taken by surprise and jerked out of the saddle.
He himself would have been flung into the boiling current, but, whirling over and over in the soft ground, he managed to clutch a projecting shrub, and there he clung, groaning with despair, as he saw the bay lurch down into the rush of the river. She was more to him than any friend had ever been. She was more to him, he often thought, than any human friend could be. Because in all the time of her service she had never once failed him in his need, saving on this sole occasion, when her failure and her death were apt to come together.
He saw her go down into the water. He saw her rise again. When, looking straight down the stream, he perceived the explanation of the heavier roaring down the valley. The floor of it dropped out of view, and the river with it. Here there was a waterfall, and that waterfall, unless she were stopped in the meantime, must be the death of poor Lou. For, gallantly though she swam, her ears pricking through the foam, she could make no headway toward the shore in that terrific current. She could only keep her head up the stream, fighting with all her power to gain the bank.
Assistance must come from the shore, and already she was rods down the stream toward the fall. Ronicky rose and labored toward the top of the slope, for he could not progress along the shore of the stream. He must first gain the firmer footing above, on the trail from which they had fallen. He gained the top, or nearly the top, when a treacherous stone slipped under his foot and rolled him down again; when he recovered and stopped his fall, he was halfway toward the water.
He looked in a horror of fear toward the mare and saw at a glance that it was too late. He could never reach her in time to save her. Should he shoot her rather than let her be mangled in the rocks below the fall? He jerked his gun into his hand and poised it, but the sight of that gallant head in the water, where she labored still with undaunted courage, unnerved him. He put the gun away and with a breaking heart turned to climb the slope again, knowing it was vain to attempt to come to her, and yet unable to endure the inaction of waiting for her death.
So, groaning and panting with the effort, he staggered up to the trail and whirled to race downstream. But the current was even more terrible in its speed than he had suspected. Lou was struggling, so it seemed, on the verge of the falling water, where the current was pulled out slick and flat, without a fleck of foam.
He saw that in the first glance, and the second look was called up the bank by a heartening shout. He could not believe that which he saw. Yonder down the trail stood the little gray horse, his head hanging from the terrific labors through which he had passed. And now, down the bank slid big Blondy, with his rope coiled in his hand. He was giving up his own chance for life and liberty for the sake of rescuing the horse from the water. And the heart of Ronicky Doone literally stood still.
He saw the big cow-puncher reach the edge of the water, saw him plant and brace his feet on the rocks, and then the rope shot out from his hand toward the head of the mare. It struck true on its target, but the current swung it on past the head of Lou.
Ronicky Doone closed his eyes. When he looked again, expecting to see an empty stretch of water and the horror ended, he was amazed to see the courageous mare still near to the verge, but not yet swept over. Perhaps she had struck shallows and was dragging at the yielding sand with her hoofs. At any rate now was her last moment.
The rope shot again from the hand of Blondy. It poised in the air at the end of the throw, then it shot down. Heavy with the water, the noose struck true around the head of Lou and disappeared under the surface. And then Blondy began to pull back. At once the rope was whipped above the river; the noose had tightened around the neck of the mare, and she was saved.
Saved, at least, if they could draw her to the bank before she was drowned or strangled.
It seemed to Ronicky afterward that his feet were rooted deep in the ground, and that he could hardly move in that nightmare, and run to the help of big Blondy. As a matter of fact he literally flung himself over the intervening distance and reached the bank and the side of the rescuer.
Swiftly, with their combined strength, pursued and pursuer, tugged on the rope and swept the bay closer to the shore, dragged her in the lee of it to still water, and then of one accord they both leaped, found the water not higher than their breasts, loosed the strangling knot from the neck of Lou, and raised her head above the water.
And for a moment, deafened by the roar of the waterfall, they waited until they were sure. But it was only an instant before the glazed eyes cleared and the breathing recommenced. And the two opened their mouths and shouted with all their power, a faint, small sound in the infernal uproar of the fall.
After that they turned their attention to getting her up the bank, but this proved a smaller matter than they had expected; for Lou was quickly herself again, and with her own unaided strength she clambered up to the dry land, shook herself like a dog, and then struggled up to the trail above.
She was touching friendly noses with the gray when the two weary, dripping men dragged themselves to the same place and faced each other. And not until that moment did they realize what had happened— the fugitive with the charge of murder on his head shaking hands with one of his pursuers whom he had insulted mortally with words and with a blow.
"Partner," Ronicky Doone was saying, "I've seen gents do some fine things in my time, but never one that was cleaner from the heart than what you done right now."
"It's nothing," Blondy was answering. "You'd have done the same if you'd seen my 'Jack,' yonder, in the same sort of a mess."
"I dunno," said Ronicky. "I'd like to think that I would, but if I was streaking it with a bunch like that behind me I—"
He paused, and big Blondy drew back. They had both remembered all that went before, and both their faces had darkened, Blondy's with pride, and Ronicky Doone's with savagery.
"Doone," said Blondy, "I ain't ashamed out here by ourselves to say that I'm sorry I knocked you down that way when you were stepping in to keep me out of trouble. But I was seeing black and—"
"Listen, son," answered Ronicky. "You've saved my hoss. And that makes up for the words you said. Yes, it more'n makes up. But it don't make up for the fist you hit me with."
He quivered with a sudden influx of wrath.
"I've been over quite a pile of country, Blondy. And I've had dealings with a whole pile of folks, but I never had anybody do what you've done to me." And he touched the wound and the swelling on his forehead.
Blondy glanced up the mountainside and made out that there was no pursuit in sight.
"Do what you please," he said coldly. "You don't have to bust yourself wide open to thank me for getting the mare. I done that for her sake, not for yours!"
"Partner, I'll write that down and remember it," said Ronicky. "If you—"
"I'd like to stand and chatter with you," said Blondy scornfully, "but I ain't got the time. If you want to do something about that knockdown, start it right now!"
There was an instant when Ronicky was on the verge of accepting the invitation, and then it was that the bay mare touched his shoulder with her nose. And he relented.
"I can't do it," he muttered. "You go down your trail, Blondy, and I'll go back down mine. You start streaking, because the boys will sure be along this way before long. Ride like the wind and get shut of them and this whole section of the country, Blondy. After you've done that, then you can start worrying about me and what I might do."
"Thanks," said Blondy, still sneering. "I ain't ever formed the habit of worrying about any man and what he might do!"
"That's because you're a kid," said Ronicky with more calm.
"I aim to be about as old as you, Doone."
"Years ain't what count. But let that go. Start on down the trail, Blondy. But, after you've got out of this section, you can lay to it that I'm going to come after you; and when we meet up there'll be trouble to pay. Understand? I'm going to have you where you had me— lying flat on your back, bleeding and helpless. The only thing is that I won't do just the way you did— I'll tell you I'm ready to fight when the time comes and give you a chance to get in shape to protect yourself."
The blow told, for the big man flushed hotly, seemed on the verge of attacking Ronicky, and then changed his mind and swung into the saddle on the gray, which had now had a chance to catch a second wind.
He hesitated again.
"Doone," he said, "will you tell me if that gent is going to be laid up long with that slug I sent into him?"
"Kind of long," said Ronicky coldly. "He's dead."
"Dead!" gasped Blondy. "My God!"
He lost all vestige of color, rubbed the back of his hand across his face, as though the blow had numbed him, and then turned the gray horse down the trail. His head was sagging. He was as spent in spirit as Jack was spent in wind.
After he had watched the other out of sight, Ronicky then sat down to wait for what he knew must happen. First he stripped Lou of the saddle and turned it up so that the wind and sun might begin to dry the blanket and padding. Lou herself found a grassy place for rolling, and in a trice she was dry and, stripped of both saddle and bridle, had wandered up the slope and was nibbling here and there.
So carefree were they, Ronicky smoking at his ease, and the mare roving as her pleasure dictated, that no one could have surmised that a few moments before poor Lou had been struggling at the very door of death. But now and again Ronicky would turn and look fondly after her, or with a low whistle he brought her to him, as readily as a dog answers a call.
There was a fine, free spirit in the mare. She carried herself with the nonchalance and the gayety and good nature of a man who has no heavy burdens on his conscience. So she would play around Ronicky Doone, and he followed her with a lazy and contented eye through the drifts and hazes of his cigarette smoke. She was all that he wished in the line of horseflesh. And, as he often said to his friends, she was better than most company because she never lost her temper and started talking back and thinking for herself in a crisis when he needed cooperation. So it was with her on this day. And when she strayed near him, his hand would go out and pass in a caress down her silken neck.
They had idled there for some minutes before the sound of hoofs, for which he had been waiting, came up the ravine toward him, and then, around the corner of the valley, there pounded half a dozen riders, all that were left from the horde which started out of Twin Springs. They shouted at the sight of Ronicky Doone, and in another instant they were halting their horses around him. They wanted to know, in a burst of questioning, exactly what had happened, and he told them, while they wondered.
When he ended, they wanted to know why he had not fought it out with the murderer before the latter left. Because, they declared, saving the life of a horse was one thing, but taking the life of a man was quite another, and so completely did it outbalance the former that it ceased to exist on the books. But Ronicky Doone was not of that opinion. And when they asked him if he were not going to saddle and continue the trail with them, he rose and made his answer briefly and to the point
"Gents, I'd sure like to see the insides of big Blondy. But I'd rather be plugged myself, I guess, than to have another gent do the opening of him. No, I ain't going to ride down that trail any more, and if you ask me straight, I don't mind saying that I'm plumb set against any of the rest of you riding down that trail. Is that clear?"
They could hardly believe him. For upon his head they could see still the crimson imprint which the fist of big Blondy had made. And yet here was the enemy barring their way!
They shouted furiously at him to step aside, but he remained firm in their path.
"In the first place," he told them, "I've promised Blondy that he ain't going to be followed after to-day, and that he's going to have a chance to get clean of this section of the country. And I aim to do what I've said for him. In the second place, boys, before you get all riled and boiling and ready to eat me up, you can lay to it that you wouldn't never catch him even if you went on ahead. That little gray hoss of his has a pile of running in it still. It could take up with the best hoss in your whole bunch and run the legs right off of it."
"D'you think," they roared, "that we're going to turn around and go back and tell the boys that the six of us got scared or tired of following the trail of the gent that killed poor Oliver Hopkins?"
"What I think you'll do," said Ronicky, diplomatically, "is to go back to Twin Springs and tell the folks there that when you come up with me and seen what Blondy had stopped and done for my hoss when it was drowning, you just nacherally didn't have it in your hearts to go after him any more that day. Besides, he was too far ahead of you anyway! That'll sound good, and it'll give all the boys a fine warm feeling, like they'd had a good drink or just finished the reading of a pretty story."
He grinned as he spoke, and the others were forced to agree with him. There was nothing else for them to do but bring their horses about and journey slowly, wearily back toward the little town, and this finally they did. But all the way the bay mare, Lou, with the dried saddle bound once more upon her back, danced along among the jaded horses, as though she had not that day run down one good horse and looked death in the face.
So that they all agreed, as they neared the town of Twin Springs, that there was never a horse more honest and fleet of foot than Lou. Moreover, there was no particular sting of shame in having been blocked in their pursuit by Ronicky Doone. As a matter of fact he had simply warned them that if they continued on the trail of Blondy, there would be trouble in great chunks ahead of them. But he had said it in such a manner that they were fairly certain he would never make what he had done a subject of boasting. There was nothing insulting in his attitude, as they returned. He picked up with them the subject of Blondy, and be agreed with them that for what he had done that day Blondy must die. It merely happened that on this occasion Blondy's horse had been good enough to outfoot the pursuers.
"And yet," they admitted, when they cantered back into Twin Springs, "ain't it a shame that a game gent like Blondy has to be plugged because he done what any one of the rest of us, being in Blondy's boots, would have done."
No sooner were they within the confines of Twin Springs, however, than they began to learn new things with great rapidity. In the first place they were greeted by a crowd of men at the hotel, where, as at the seat of knowledge, the crowd was assembled to await bulletins which would give them the latest information from the battle front, so to speak. And when the little host learned that big Blondy still rode unmolested over the hills, there was a howl of rage.
The reason for their sorrow was a strange one. For it was discovered that Oliver Hopkins was not dead— he was not even seriously wounded; for the bullet had simply taken a glancing course around his body, and what had seemed mortal had been no more than a stunning and surface injury! Oliver Hopkins was not dead, and therefore there was no reason for killing the victor. But there was another angle from which the case had to be viewed.
When it was thought that Oliver was dead, the whole affair had taken on a somber and gloomy atmosphere. What had started as a prank had resulted as a killing, and only grim and joyless duty forced the riders along the trail of Blondy. But now it appeared that Hopkins lived, and the infuriated townsmen knew that they had been insulted, slapped in the face, and baffled!
It was enough to spread a thick layer of shame over two generations, such an event as this. The cow-punchers ground their teeth. All sympathy for Blondy was conjured away into a thin mist immediately, and in its place there was fury. Law had now nothing to do with it The insult had been to the entire town. It became known that that morning Blondy had loudly boasted of how he intended to ride into Twin Springs, show his undaunted face wheresoever he pleased, and then return unscathed and thereby break the spell of dread with which the cow-punchers at the Bennett Ranch had come to regard the village.
What was more, old Bennett had tried to dissuade him. And pretty Elsie Bennett, so they said, had followed him clear to his horse, entreating him with tears in her eyes not to take such a terrible chance.
And how had he answered? He had laughed loudly as he sat in the saddle, and, waving his hat to her, he had cried that they didn't make men big enough in Twin Springs to keep him from riding peaceably into the town and peaceably out again.
And he had done what he promised!
In the completeness of their rage the foiled townsmen could not devise future punishment terrible enough to satisfy their spirits. Some suggested tar and feathers when they caught him. Others would have been content with riding him on a rail and kindred amusements. But here Ronicky Doone murmured his belief that the fugitive would never come back to face them. They laughed him to scorn. Short as was the time Blondy had been on the Bennett Ranch, it was an open secret that he was devoted body and soul to gay little Elsie. He would return to her as inevitably as iron must go to the magnet. As a matter of fact, they swore, he had simply undertaken this daring feat to make himself out a hero in the eyes of the girl.
And Ronicky left them, while they were still devising ways and means and grinding their communal teeth, so to speak. He went up to his room in the hotel and sat before the window to watch in solitude the coming of the sunset
He was in a gloomy humor. The mention of the girl had, for some reason, poured salt into his wounds. Here was young Blondy starting on a career of glory for fame and for the lady. And there sat he, Ronicky Doone, with the thin fingers of a thousand ghostly deeds plucking at his memory, but nothing left of all he had done! His life had left no solid body. The revolver at his hip, the rifle on his saddle, the horse he rode, the gay clothes upon his back and a pittance in his pocket— this represented the total gain of his labors.
With a sad pride he told himself that at least he had never debased himself to win money or reputation. He had labored for others more than for himself. And yet these were small consolations. The mere name of the unseen girl, linked with the thought of Blondy, tormented him. Blondy and Elsie Bennett would someday, he felt by premonition, be happy together. And he, Ronicky Doone, could never reach that wished for goal. He knew it with all the greater certainty, as the brilliance of the sunset faded out, and there fell over the town the partial night cast by the western mountains. Out of the past he carried nothing, he kept repeating— he carried nothing! Such a monody, drumming into the ear and the spirit of a young man is not good for the soul, and Ronicky Doone finally dropped his head on his fist in a joyless study.
It was certain that he could not leave the community until he had confronted big Blondy, and yet he longed with all his soul to leave the town and the men in it behind him and ride on. That had been the course of his past years— riding on and on, from one set of acquaintances and from one community to another until there was behind him a wild and swiftly shifting host of recollections— no fixed group of men and women and events such as make up the background of our average life.
Here he was surprised and startled by a heavy knocking at the door, delivered so strongly as to suggest that the door had been kicked with the boot rather than struck by the hand. Ronicky rose in some anger.
He had no more than time to rise and turn, however, when the door opened, and it opened in such a way as to indicate the manner in which the knocks had been delivered. It flew wide and folded back on the wall with a crash, and the foot of the man in the hall was stretched forth in mid-stride. He had announced himself by booting the door. And now he had kicked it open and stepped in before Ronicky, at the same time turning carelessly and waving toward some people on the outside.
"I'll be down in a minute, boys. Start eating, and tell 'em that it's on me tonight. Everybody eats free on Al Jenkins!"
And with this introduction he made a back swipe with his heel, caught the edge of the door with his spur, and slammed it shut as violently as he had opened it, the rowel cutting a visible gash in the wood. Then he advanced upon Ronicky.
He was a man of middle height, though so stoutly built from head to foot that he seemed much less. Ronicky was surprised to find the eyes of Al Jenkins almost on a level with his own, and he hastily recast his first conception and mental measurements of the man. Truly Al was a mighty man. It would have been inappropriate to speak of his fifty winters; summers was the word for Al Jenkins. For there was a bloom and gloss to his cheek like the cheek of an apple when the leaves begin to bronze, and the apples shine on the bough. His eye was as bright as his cheek. His teeth when he smiled— and he was always smiling— were polished and white. He had a hand as big as two, and his foot was well nigh in the same proportion. So that Ronicky Doone could hardly repress a smile at the thought of such a man as this setting siege to the heart of a pretty girl and making and wrecking his life because of her.
Yet he had once been other than he was now. His hand was made gross with flesh, whereas it had once been simply wide and strong. His waist, too, was unduly corpulent, and in a leaner youth those shoulders and that chest must have swelled with a suggestion of herculean power. Even at fifty be was a mighty man. Not only was he mighty in muscle, but his personality struck Ronicky in the face and made him look down. The great hand was stretched toward him. "You're Ronicky Doone?"
"I'm him," said Ronicky and gingerly intrusted his fingers to the bone-breaking possibilities of that great paw. To his surprise the grip of Al Jenkins proved to be as gentle as the touch of a girl, and it told Ronicky, more strongly than words could have done, that Al Jenkins was as considerate as he was powerful. In a flash he understood the popularity of Al in the town. Money alone could not have purchased such a repute west of the rockies.
"Been hearing about you," said Al Jenkins.
"I been hearing more about you," said Ronicky.
That's a lie," said Jenkins. "Because the gent that told me about you can tell more in a minute than another man can tell in a year. I mean old Sam Tompson. Most of what he says is lies, but he strings his lies together pretty well. He makes 'em look good. The only thing I balked on about you is when he told me that you was a mass of scars from head to foot, and that you done all he said you'd done and are still shy of twenty-seven. Turn around here and let me have a look at you!"
He had a great proprietary, possessive air which was not really offensive. Now with one hand he turned Ronicky Doone around. With the other hand he struck a match and lighted a lamp and then held the light high, so that in the dusk he could examine the face of the youth. In another man it would have been intolerable impertinence, but in Al Jenkins it was simply an idiosyncrasy with which Ronicky for one was quite willing to put up. He even broke into laughter, as Al Jenkins stepped back and lowered the lamp, shaking his head in bewilderment.
"What plumb beats me," said Al Jenkins, "is how he can keep a straight face when he tells them lies, that Tompson! He said that you— why, half of the things that he said about you would have filled a book, Ronicky. How much of 'em are straight? What's all this about you being a fire-eating, man-killing terror? Is that the truth about the time when you—"
"It's all wrong," said Ronicky instantly. "I'm the most gentlest, peaceablest, law-abidingest gent you ever seen, Mr. Jenkins. You can lay to that! I dunno where old Tompson got hold of his yarns about me, but—"
"He got 'em down south. Says that once on the Staked Plains—"
"Oh, he don't know what he's talking about," said Ronicky calmly. "There ain't no use talking about what he said."
"For the first time I begin to think that there's something in what he told me," replied Jenkins.
He now folded his arms above his stomach and planted his legs well apart. "Doone," he said, "I guess this is a lucky day for both of us."
"I hope so," said Ronicky politely.
"Well, I'm going to make it so!" boomed the big man. "Hope is all well and good. But it's better off when it's left inside the covers of a book. It ain't a good word for a man to use. He's got hands to make things and to take things with. That's better than a dreamer's head to hope!"
He brought his sentence to a conclusion by crashing the flat of his hand down upon the table, so that that flimsy article of furniture sagged sadly to one side with a great groan. Al Jenkins straightened it with a jerk that set the lamp to dancing, and the flame to leaping in the glass chimney's throat. But Jenkins allowed the lamp to stagger unregarded. He was already pacing up and down the room, now and then coming to a pause in front of Ronicky and directing the full power of his resonant voice and his bright, clear eyes upon the younger man.
"Here's what I'm driving at," said Jenkins. "You been in town long enough to know what I'm doing around here?"
"I got a general idea," said Ronicky, fumbling to find the words which would most gently approach the truth. "They tell me that you're sort of interested in road building and real estate and that you are buying a good deal of land."
"Thunder!" burst in Jenkins. "They tell you a lot of rot. What I'm after is old Bennett, and, if they talked to you about me at all, they told you that first off. I'm here doing things for the town, and maybe some of them are done because I do like the place. But right down in the bottom of your heart you can get to the real facts, which I don't try to hide: that I'm in here helping Twin Springs because I want Twin Springs to help me. And why do I need help? Because I'm smashing Bennett— because I'm smashing him root and branch!"
As he spoke he crashed his fist into the palm of his other hand repeatedly with force enough to have knocked down an ordinary man. The energy of the rancher was amazing. No wonder he had succeeded in tearing wealth out of the frozen land of Alaska. He put enough effort into five minutes of conversation to have enabled another to run a mile.
"H'm." said Ronicky, "I see. Well I did hear a little about that—"
"And you thought I was a mean old scoundrel for doing it, eh?"
"Why—"
"Don't deny it! That's what you thought! Well, there's no harm in thinking what you please. This is a mighty free country, son, and I want it to stay free so far as I'm concerned. Think what you please, Doone, but just listen to me while I talk sense to you. Ronicky, I've got a need of you. I want you on my side!"
Ronicky Doone regarded him with wonder.
"You got the wrong idea about me," he said. "I ain't floating through here aiming to get into trouble on one side or the other. Matter of fact all that I want to do is to get even with big Blondy, and then I'll be traveling along, I guess."
"Sure," said Al Jenkins hastily, waving his hand in large agreement with this statement. "Don't I know what's going on inside of your head, boy? You're plumb peaceable. All you want to do is to finish up Blondy. But, Ronicky, I aim to tell you that before you've finished up Blondy you'll be a mite older than you are."
Ronicky shook his head.
"I finish my business quick," he declared. "Either he gets me, or I get him. That's all there is to it. As soon as he finds out that Oliver Hopkins ain't dead, he'll be back on the Bennett place as big as life. So I guess it won't be long before him and me meet up."
Al Jenkins shook his head.
"Son," he said, "I'd like to trust you to do the right thing, but I can't. You go to kill Blondy— don't shake your head and cuss because I say that. You're going to fight him, and the only way you can stop one of Blondy's kind is to kill him. I know! But when you go out to the ranch, nine chances out of ten, the person you run into will be old Bennett, with a tongue slicker than a snake's tongue. And he'll talk you around onto his side quicker'n you can wink. Oh, he's a fine talker, old Bennett is. Why he picked a job where he'd have to talk to cows instead of to men, I can't make out! He could steal a baby out of the arms of the judge, if he was a lawyer, and have the jury weeping and swearing that the kid belonged to him, all inside of the shake of a lamb's tail. That's the sort of a pizen gent this Bennett is!"
"But I'm not going out to talk," said Ronicky. "I—"
He might as well have tried to stop the rush of an undammed stream. Al Jenkins when he began to talk kept on until his mind was empty of ideas.
"Or if it ain't the old man, then his girl will get you. Have you heard anything about his girl?"
"Only that she's pretty," said Ronicky.
The older man stared at him in disgust.
"What kind of men do they breed nowadays?" he roared at last. "I'll tell you all about Elsie Bennett, son. She's the living image of her mother. Oh my, oh my, oh my!"
He brought out the exclamations partly as devout sighs and partly as groans.
"Know what that means? That means that she's one of them deadly blondes. She's one of them kind that got hair that's a sort of a palpitating gold. Pale gold, you see, with the sun in it, is what her hair is. She's got blue eyes. She may be thinking up more kinds of deviltry than there are underground, but all the time she'll have a look in her eye that makes a man think of heaven. She's got a dimple tucked away in one cheek and a sort of a little crooked smile. That smile always seems to be at you as much as it is with you. She ain't got one of these tissue-paper skins with color in her cheeks like it was slapped on with a paint brush— one of them skins that fade and wrinkle up by the time a girl's thirty, in this here climate. No, sir. Her skin is just sort of creamy, with a look like it had been rubbed and sponged till it was fresh and clear as crystal. D'you foller me, son?"
He had changed his tone wonderfully in speaking of the girl. He stood with his head thrown back, so that the immense column of this throat was exposed. But out of that great throat came a voice soft and deep and tremulous with an edging of emotion that cut to Ronicky's quick.
"Oh, lad," said the big man, "a girl like her hadn't ought to belong to no one man. Why, she should be private property. She'd ought to be taken around where everybody could see her and be happy looking at her. A sight of her is better than good news. And a picture of her smiling, or the hearing of her laugh, is like striking gold in the desert."
He raised his head again and scowled at Ronicky Doone.
"Why ain't you standing on tiptoe, champing and chawing the bit to get out and see her, you young rapscallion?" he roared.
"I can get along tolerable well without seeing her," admitted Ronicky Doone.
"Bah!" said Al Jenkins. "You maybe think that you're in love with some other girl, but you ain't! It ain't no ways possible for a man to be really in love except with a woman like she is, or her mother was before her! Why, I got more reasons for hating Bennett and the Bennett stock than a spider has got for hating a wasp. But I don't dare get within range of that girl. All my hate would wither up. I'd soften up like a sponge. I'd begin to grin and gape at her. And I'd be lost, and she could do what she wanted with me. Inside of a minute I'd be signing over half of my land to that skunk of a father of hers. That's the sort of a girl she is!" He concluded with another explosion of sound.
"And you think that you'd be safe if you went out to shoot Blondy and met her instead? Bah! She'd make a fool of you. You'd crawl around on your hands and knees begging for a chance to work for her and fight for her!"
"How does it come," suggested Ronicky, "that she doesn't have the same effect on the other men around these parts? Why doesn't she get a whole army of 'em for her father?"
"I'll tell you why: folks are blind to what they grow up next to. I was born by the sea. And I never seen nothing in it. I come west and went plumb batty with a case of desert fever, and here I stick. And do you hear them that are born on the desert talking a lot about it? No, you don't. They're too used to it. When you take 'em away from it after a while, they may begin to mourn for it. But it's the things you ain't never lacked that you can't appreciate. Same way with the young folks around here and that flower of a girl, Elsie Bennett. They've growed up in the same schools with her. They've seen her playing dolls with other little girls and putting on long skirts to play grownups. They've seen her get into the feet-hands-and-elbows stage, when all girls look plumb ugly. They've seen all that, and no wonder they don't know what she is! One or two have rubbed their eyes and waked up and found out the truth and gone batty about her for a while, but she gives them the cold shoulder when they come talking marriage, and they wander off some other place to keep from busting their hearts. That's why they don't know what she is."
Ronicky had listened with the most profound interest, not so much caught by the warnings and the pictures of Jenkins, but intrigued by the revelation of the old man's character.
"But why are you so set on getting me?" he asked at length.
"I'll tell you why. Because things ain't now the way they used to be. I don't mean to speak light of you, Doone, after all that I've heard about you. But I just want you to know that twenty years ago I wouldn't have given a shake which side you joined, because with my money and my men I could wipe out old Bennett any time I took a mind to it. But them days ain't no morel Them days ain't no more! They're gone!"
He groaned bitterly.
"When Bennett wanted to run me out of the country twenty years ago, what did he do? He simply hired a bunch of men and run off my cows in a gang. He didn't waste no time thinking and planning. He scooped what I had and left me busted. Easy for him! Oh, curse his hide! But when I come back with some money of my own and find him down, times have changed. A gent can't come in and do what he pleases. No, sir; he's got to wait around and see what the public sentiment is. Like as not, if he lifts a hand, he'll get hanged for it. So I've been laboring here these years working up my case against Bennett. I have things all worked up fine and ready to squash Bennett when along comes this big Blondy and makes this play of his. Well, folks didn't take him none too serious before. But they begin to now, and they take Bennett serious along with Blondy. And now if you go in and join up with Bennett— why, it'd be a mighty serious thing, and it might stall me altogether! You got brains, both you and Blondy, and you're both born fighters. And if you teamed it on the same side you might bust up my little game for me and spoil things all around."
His frankness made Ronicky gasp. Certainly there was an old-fashioned honesty underlying the malignant hatred with which Jenkins pursued Bennett.
"Talk straight out," he said finally. "I don't mind saying that I like you, Mr. Jenkins, and I'd like to please you. Just tell me where I could fit into your plans, and I'll see what I can do for you."
"That's talk of the right kind!" cried Al Jenkins. "It's taken a long tune to get around to it, but I seen when I laid eyes on you that I couldn't get you in a second. Ronicky, d'you ever ride the range?"
"That's my regular way of making a living."
"Are you aiming to take a job pretty soon?"
"Maybe."
"Then line up for a month under me, Ronicky. I just want to make sure that you ain't going to be against me. I ain't buying you, and I ain't offering to, because I know that money couldn't do it. I'm just saying: Will you come out and hang up your saddle in my bunk house for a while?"
"And if I don't?" asked Ronicky.
"If you don't, and particular if you line up with Bennett, it's going to go hard with you. I'm ready to close in on them, son. I've got public opinion switched over my way. We're a long, long ways from the law. And if I should clean up Bennett's beef now, the way he done with mine, I don't think he'd have much of a chance to prove anything against me and my men. What d'you say, Ronicky?"
"I'm going to take a ride around tonight," said Ronicky, checking himself on the verge of agreeing. "When I come back I'll let you know."
"Right!" said Al Jenkins. "A gent that thinks before he does a thing is a gent that don't change his mind afterward. Good-by!"
After Al Jenkins left the room there were still a few moments during which Ronicky Doone sat by the black square of the window, staring out on the shadows of the street, broken by the bars of yellow lamplight. The acrid scent of dust impregnated with bitter alkali floated toward him in thin drifts from time to time, after a horseman had lurched up or down the street, his hoofbeats muffled to soft thuds by the thick layer of dust through which they struck. While he sat there, letting the peace of the village steal over him and all the quiet of the mountains, he revolved in his mind what Al Jenkins had said to him, and the more he pondered the stranger the position seemed to him.
Yet what Jenkins wanted was understandable. He had reduced Bennett to such a point that he could soon crush his rival. But the addition of the slightest strength might unbalance the scale and postpone the destruction of Bennett for an indefinite period. One more daring deed performed in the name of Bennett, as Blondy had performed his deed this day, would convince the men of the village that Bennett had under him something beside a number of tramps. Public sentiment might swing mightily toward the opposite side. Therefore Jenkins had tried to make doubly sure of Ronicky.
As for Ronicky, the old urge to go on and on and on which whipped him remorselessly through the mountains, was now dying out. Twin Springs was becoming a focus around which his thoughts gathered and centered. Just in this fashion men find a new place strange and desolate which, after a little living, seems to become the center of the world, all their lives moving within its bounds. And Ronicky, looking out of the window, felt that he was looking into the heart of the town and the country around it.
Necessarily he must join the forces of honest Al Jenkins, if he stayed. And he must stay to fight big Blondy. And if he stayed to fight Blondy he must be with those who were opposed to Bennett. What could be more logical than this strain of reasoning? And yet, because he hated alliances of all kinds, he delayed and determined to have that ride before his mind was made up.
When he went down to the veranda of the hotel a score of heads— for the porch was well filled— turned toward him at once in greeting. That day's work had got him known. More than that, those who had heard of him had been about buzzing the rumors which they had picked up. He was a known man, indeed.
He stepped down through a murmur of greetings and went out to the shed, where Lou was stabled. He groomed her by lantern light. For, though she was one of the tough mustang breed that live as happily without brushing as with it, yet it was a custom which Ronicky had started and could not stop. He worked until the red bay was a shining velvet, with high lights from the lantern splashed along the silk of her flanks. Then he saddled her and swung up in the stirrups.
She slipped out from the shed, as light of foot and eager on the bit as though she had been in pasture for a month. Truly she was made of watch springs and leather, a tireless mechanism! At the trough he gave her one swallow of water and then sent her across the country. He picked the course at random. East and west rose rough-sided mountains. He did not wish to break the heart of Lou with such work. They were out for a pleasure walk, so to speak, not for labor. To the south the hills separated in uninteresting monotony. But to the north a valley lay like a funnel into the heart of the mountains. And into this funnel he sent Lou.
There might be no road at all. But for that he did not care. Straight across the country fled Lou, running among shrubs, with a smoothly wavering line, just as a dry twig is floated down among stones by the current of a brook, twisted here and there quickly, but with never a jar. When a fence rose before her, she rose and cleared it in lovely style, tucking up her heels beneath her in the most approved manner, which a trained hunter might have envied. Over the meadows she struck a hotter pace; in the rough ground she went more slowly, but still fast enough. And all this while the rein was dangling loose on her neck!
Yes, once the direction was given to her, it was not necessary that he concern himself with the course she picked. She would keep on in the line selected, diverging here and there, as the lay of the land forced her to do, but swinging always back to the original direction, as the needle swings toward the pole. She kept her head high, for the sky was made darker than usual by a highflying sheet of clouds, which were swept rapidly across the heavens by a wind not felt in the valleys. That high head enabled her to pierce the dimness for some distance and plan her course with fair accuracy. And all the while she was enjoying her work just as much as Ronicky Doone enjoyed his ride.
Lou had so beautifully free and elastic a stride that by her way of going one would have guessed her to be ever on the trail for home; yes, one would have thought that she was every minute passing familiar landmarks which called into her mind the old home and brought the very scent of the sweet hay and the warm barn into her nostrils. This night ride was to her a frolic and more joyous than to her master. As for Ronicky, he had only to half close his eyes, as the deliciously cool air whirred against his face, and let his mind wander where it would.
He did not rouse himself into full consciousness of his direction until he felt Lou throw up her head with a little start, such as she always gave when there was before her a problem which she felt might better have the attention of the master. At the same time she quickened her stride, settling down toward the ground a little, in the manner which unmistakably betokens a leap to come.
Ronicky looked up barely in time to see before him a wide, still stretch of water, shining faintly in the darkness of the night. Where a star, looking through the swirl of dizzy clouds above, peered down at the water, there was a point of light. He saw that and measured with a sudden concern the width of the leap; then Lou rose like a swallow against a sudden gust of wind and sailed high in the air.
He could tell by the convulsive effort with which she flung herself up and forward that she knew the leap to be close to the limit of her ability. And, as she passed the apex of her spring and began to shoot down, it seemed to Ronicky a certain thing that she would dip in the water. But she shot on, and her forehoofs landed on the dry ground, and her hind toes scooped up a spray of the water, but the next moment she was cantering on, only laboring a little in the heavy going which the water of the creek had impregnated. But she had hardly taken a stride— indeed, it was almost simultaneous with her landing across the water— when there was a faint cry and then a shrill one from some shrubs to Ronicky's right. At once he whirled the mare toward the voice.
It was a woman's voice; the first sound coming as though she was half choked by surprise, and the second shrill with terror. Ronicky ranged his horse behind the shrubs, just as she darted out, an indistinct figure in the night, He halted her with a shout, at the same time peering on all sides to make out the light of her home, but there was no such light in view. She seemed to have been standing there in the thicket by choice. Ronicky had heard, however, of female tramps, though even in his wide wanderings he had never seen one. But such she must unquestionably be.
"Look here," he said, "there ain't any call for running. I ain't going to harm you. Who might you be?"
She paused at the side of a tree, more distinctly visible to him, now that he was able to fix her with his eyes. Moreover she was wearing a dress of some light color which helped to define her in the night.
"Who are you?" she asked in turn. "And what are you doing here, off the road?"
The first sound of her voice convinced Ronicky that he had been wrong in his surmise about the female tramp. Never in the world could there be a wanderer of the road with such a voice. He could guess at other things, too, having once heard her speak. She had courage, or her voice would not have been so even. She had surprising courage considering the youth which her voice suggested, and the lateness of the hour and the midnight dark.
"Me?" answered Ronicky, with as much daylight good humor as he could manage to throw into his voice, "Why, I'm just a stranger out riding for the sake of the ride."
She remained silent, as one who did not believe what she had heard, but who considered that it would be bad policy to dispute with the unknown.
"I might be asking you," said Ronicky, "what you're doing out here at this time of night— away from the road?"
"Oh, I'll tell you how to reach it," she said, not answering this question. "You start over to your right and keep going till you reach a fence. Then ride down the fence, turning north until you come to a gate. That gate opens onto the road to Twin Springs. I suppose that's the place you're trying to find?"
"That's the place I've just left," said Ronicky, "and I don't worry about the road. My hoss and me— we sort of get along where there ain't no road to speak of."
Again she was silent, but what little she had spoken left such a pleasant impression on Ronicky that he paused and hunted through his mind for the means of prolonging the talk.
"I'd an idea," he murmured at length, "that maybe you was lost yourself, being out here alone in the night. You see?"
Still she did not speak, and he could see by the increasing dimness of her figure that she was slowly drawing back from him. All at once Ronicky Doone began to laugh.
"Lady," he said, "it's sure a queer thing what the sun does to us. If this was by daylight, you wouldn't think nothing of meeting me here, but because it's night, you figure that there's danger. Is that it?"
"There's no danger of course," said the girl, her voice as steady as ever, in spite of her retreat. Then suddenly she was laughing, also. "Who are you?" she asked.
"My name," he answered, "don't matter particular. I'm just drifting through. Most like I'll never be in this valley again. What might the valley be, lady?"
"If you'll never see it again," she answered, "I don't suppose the name matters much."
"Oh, if you're going to put it that way," said Ronicky, "I'll tell you. My name is Ronicky Doone."
"Ronicky Doone!" she gasped, and then again she repeated: "Ronicky Doone! You're the man that Charlie Loring—"
She stopped short, but Ronicky continued for her in perfect good nature. "Is that big Blondy's name? Yes, I'm the man that Charlie Loring knocked down and beat up, and then he got away clean, and I didn't do a thing to him!"
"But, oh," she broke in, "you're the man whose horse he saved from the river, so you bear him no grudge, of course!"
"No grudge?" asked Ronicky. "Well, he saved the hoss right enough, but he also knocked me flat when I'd done nothing to him. For saving Lou I'd sure like to save a dozen hosses for him, but for knocking me down— but women can't understand things like that."
"Can't we? But we do! And you've come up here trying to find him in the dark because you don't care to face him in the daylight. Oh, how cowardly!"
If she had struck him suddenly in the face Ronicky Doone could not have been more surprised. He fumbled for an answer, found no polite rejoinder, and was still, a silence which she instantly interpreted as a confession. Certainly if she had been afraid before, all fear now vanished, as she came swiftly toward him and only halted when she was under the very nose of the mare. And she stood there, regardless of the fearless and inquisitive muzzle which Lou poked toward her. For the bay mare had the trust of those animals which have never endured pain from the hand of man. In her fury, however, the girl paid no heed to that reaching head.
"Before you can do what you hope to do," she said fiercely, "you'll have to be ten times the man that you are. Oh, I know what stories they brought out— about Ronicky Doone the gun fighter and the man-killer, but no man who hunts in the dark and sneaks around to strike from behind can ever beat Charlie Loring. No man!"
She stopped. He heard her panting with her rush of anger, as she waited for his retort, but he only said, light breaking in on him: "I guess this is Hanshaw Valley? And you're Elsie Bennett?"
"What of that?" she asked.
"Only that I won't be bothering you no more," said Ronicky Doone dryly, and he turned Lou away into the darkness.
"Wait! Wait!" she cried after him, but Ronicky had had enough of facing such guns in battle. He sent Lou away at a brisk canter and shot away out of view over the next swell of ground, and the calling of the girl died out behind him.
No sooner was the rim of the hill between them, however, than he turned about and slipped back in the direction from which he had come until his head was just above the edge of the hill. There he paused: scanning the shrubbery beside the water carefully, he was able to make out the dim outlines of the upper part of the body of the girl, as she stood among the bushes with the flat surface of the pool behind her.
There was only one reason why she should be standing there, it seemed to Ronicky, and that was to meet Blondy. It had occurred to him as soon as he guessed her identity. This was a secret meeting place which she and the big fellow had agreed upon, and now that he was in trouble she was waiting out for him here, confident that he would come, if that were possible, and then she could tell him the good news, without which he might wander on for days and days, unknowing. She could tell him that death did not hang over his head after all, for big Oliver Hopkins had recovered. And then they would go happily back to the house together. And on the way she would tell him how she had met his enemy, Ronicky Doone, and how Ronicky had slipped away into the night.
If all of these surmises proved correct, then that blind ride into the darkness from Twin Springs had taken him directly to his enemy. The thought warmed his heart. There was only a matter of a few minutes to wait now, before he received verification of his suspicions. For in the distance he heard the sound of a jogging horse. And then, as that sound approached, he made out the shadowy form of a horseman who approached the stream and the wide pool from the farther side. This traveler presently halted his horse and sent a low-pitched, wavering whistle up the hill, which was immediately answered by another from the shrubs by the water.
The heart of Ronicky leaned, as he saw that his guess had been perfectly accurate. Now the rider urged his mount, so it seemed, straight into the water, though Ronicky shrewdly guessed that he was riding out on a firm sand bar, from which the easiest leap would carry him safe to the farther shore. Presently the rider was in the shrubs, off the horse, and beside the girl.
So hushed was the night air that Ronicky could hear the murmur of their voices distinctly. Then after a moment or two they began to walk toward the hill, with the vague form of the gray horse drifting along behind them. No matter how queenly Elsie Bennett might be— and from the description of old Al Jenkins she must be a heart-stopping beauty— she had apparently made her choice. The handsome form of big, blond-headed Charlie Loring was her selection as a husband, it seemed. For surely only love could keep a girl waiting in such a place at such a time, alone. Indeed it must be an affair of long standing, comparatively speaking, or they would not have agreed so perfectly on their meeting point and on their system of signals.
In the meantime Ronicky must remove himself from their course. For they were making straight for the hill, and he must take care that Lou moved softly, since the wind was blowing down to them and would carry every sound a considerable distance. So Ronicky leaned and whispered in the ear of the bay mare, at the same time bringing the most careful pressure to bear on the reins. The result was astonishing, for Lou was converted in a trice into a stealthy-stepping cat. Crouching a little and gliding with such a delicate foot-fall that the grass was hardly disturbed underfoot, she slipped away to the shelter of a low line of trees. Behind these Ronicky Doone turned her and there cautioned her once more in a whisper to which she listened with her ears pricked anxiously forward. Having been warned in this fashion, nothing could make her betray their position with a neigh.
In fact the girl and the man, with the staunch little gray horse dragging wearily in the rear, passed within fifteen yards without giving a sign that anything was suspected. Just as they were by, however, and Ronicky was congratulating himself that the maneuver was so successfully accomplished, the gray tossed his head and neighed. Ronicky ground his teeth, as the girl and her escort stopped and turned with exclamations. But the gray was too tired to continue his whinnying. They apparently took it for granted that the little outburst was simply due to the fact that the hungry horse sensed his nearness to home and a well-earned portion of grain; for they went on almost at once and faded into the darkness. No sooner were they a glimmering, almost invisible shadow ahead of him, than Ronicky Doone sent the light-footed Lou out from the trees once more, and so he stole along on the trail of the two.
He felt somewhat as he would have felt had he been eavesdropping, but now stealth was necessary, for he had to make these people his guide to the house which, beyond doubt, was their destination— that of Steve Bennett. There the girl would probably go inside the house, while Charlie Loring went out to put up his horse, and Ronicky could stop him on the way. Or perhaps they could finish their argument by lantern light in the barn. Why not?
All turned out as he hoped. Before long, as they worked their way up that rolling, pleasant valley, he saw from the crest of a rise the yellow window lights of a house which, as he drew nearer, assumed large dimensions. For the wind had shifted in the past half hour or more and had scoured the sky clean of clouds, and the big house was distinctly drawn across the stars. Beyond it stretched the usual array of barns and the gloomy network of fences around corrals which goes with the Western ranch. In the starlight, too, it was easily possible to trace the movements of the two by the gray horse. Ronicky stayed just within sight of that spot of color, trusting that the drab color of Lou would not be visible.
For a moment they paused at the house, and then the gray horse and the man went on toward the barn, alone. Ronicky at once dropped out of the saddle, threw his reins to make Lou keep to that spot until he needed her, and hurried on after Blondy. It was not exactly a joyous occasion for him. He had no feeling of personal animosity against Blondy Loring. But it was necessary in the strictest sense of the term that he should clear his honor. For he could not leave that district until he had finished with Loring. And now was as good a time as any, or better.
Vaguely he wondered what would happen. He would not shoot to kill, if it had to come to a gun play, as it probably would. But if he did not shoot to kill, there was a vast probability that Charlie Loring would. This, however, was a problem which he had faced before, and he was not unnerved by it now. He saw the door of the house open and let out a shaft of light which framed the black form of the girl and glimmered in her hair. Then the door closed, and Ronicky hurried on until he picked the barn into which big Blondy Loring and the gray horse disappeared.
Here, before resuming his pursuit, he paused a moment to take his bearings as accurately as he could. And, as one long familiar with danger, he now worked most coolly, jotting down in his mind an elaborate sketch in which the position of the house, the fences, what seemed to be the bunk house, and the outlying sheds were all marked. When he left that barn he might be in considerable haste, so that it would pay him to know exactly in what direction he had best race to get to the mare. He would start her toward him with his alarm whistle, as soon as he left the barn, and they would meet midway.
With his retreat thus cared for, or at least carefully considered, he turned his back resolutely on the past and fronted the work just before him. And, so doing, he settled himself into a strange attitude of mind which an ordinary man could never have achieved.
Carefully he cut out and threw from his attention all his past. And of his future nothing was left to concern him except the events of the next few instants. He was about to confront an antagonist who had given the most conclusive proof that he was a foeman worthy of the steel of even a Ronicky Doone. For that reason the heart of Ronicky began to rise. On times before this he had been forced by public opinion into battle with men who were beaten before the fight began. But this case was distinctly different, and he rallied himself to meet it.
He found something to rejoice in. There was war ahead of him. He could turn himself for the nonce into a wild man. The law would not strike him down even if he killed. And, though he would fight to conquer, not to destroy, this was a consolation; they would consider this battle as a duel.
When he reached the entrance to the long barn, at the side where the gray horse had entered, Ronicky was high of head, almost smiling, and with a fierce joy keeping him tensed and keen. In the darkness of the barn he saw a match struck, a sharp line of blue leaping out, as the match was drawn over the trousers of Blondy. Then the head spurted into flame. Next, as that flame gathered strength, it showed the hand, the intent, tired face of Charlie Loring, and the glass of the lantern he was lighting. The head of the gray horse was shown, also, and the light rudely outlined the forms of two or three other horses. But this was the season when most of the stock would be running on pasture.
As soon as the lantern chimney was drawn down into place, shutting off the wind, the flame steadied, and the light was multiplied tenfold. Blondy hung the light at the side of the barn and, after tethering his horse, climbed into the mow and threw a quantity of hay into the manger. In the meantime Ronicky turned and looked back toward the ranch house. There was only one lighted window when the place was looked at from this direction, and that light was bleared to a greasy effect, perhaps by cobwebs and other dirt Yet it gave Ronicky the effect of an eye overlooking him from behind.
And might they not come out of the house toward him? No, the great chances were that the girl had stolen from the house without telling anyone of her intention of meeting Blondy. Her father would not have permitted it. Besides it would have revealed the secret meeting place, and that no girl could have consented to. So it stood to reason that she had gone out secretly after supper, and now she was secretly returning. So that there was no danger of an alarm being spread among the men to send them out to congratulate big Blondy on his escape of that day and his epic achievement in riding into Twin Springs. Such an errand would have brought them squarely upon Ronicky Doone.
This decision heartened Ronicky still more. He had waited just outside the door, and now he stepped in, as Blondy swung down from the manger and came whistling toward the lantern. Certainly he was a magnificent man! The lantern threw a giant shadow behind him, blotching the far side of the almost empty haymow, and yet there was no need of shadows to exaggerate the size of those wide shoulders. He was as huge as two ordinary men rolled into one.
Just as he was reaching for the lantern he saw Ronicky and with an oath sprang back.
"By Heaven," cried Blondy Loring, "she was right!"
What that meant Ronicky did not pause to consider, for his mind was stunned by perceiving that the gun belt had been left off, and that Charlie Loring was weaponless before him! So thoroughly was he prepared to see Loring armed that he had not been able to see the truth until he waited for the big man's hand to go for the revolver. Then he discovered the truth. Loring stepped back and folded his arms.
"You've got me," he said. "You've got me I guess, Doone. Going to make it a cold murder, eh?"
"Don't talk like a rat," answered Ronicky, very angry at this insinuation. "You know that I ain't that kind of a hound. If you don't know it, it's time that you did. I ain't going to take advantage. I've come here for a fair fight, Loring. You come up here where you left your saddle and your gun; then put your gat back on. Then we'll have it out, fair and square. Does that suit you?"
"Right in here— where we'd scare the hosses?"
The nerve of big Blondy was a fine thing to see, and Ronicky grinned in whole-souled appreciation.
"It sure goes against the grain," he told Blondy. "But I've done what I could to pay you back for saving Lou. I've kept 'em off of your trail, and I gave you a chance to find out the truth. I don't aim to say that that makes us even up, but I hope it shows that I mean right by you, Blondy."
"But I mean right by you, too," said Blondy, still chuckling, as though the outcome of the battle were a foregone conclusion. "I mean right by you, and I'll see that you get a fair and even break out of his, Ronicky. I'll bury you in style when this is over, and I'll do up your coffin all in velvet. What you say to that?"
Ronicky smiled again.
"Help yourself," he said gallantly, and stepping back, as Loring drew near, he waved toward the gun belt.
As he did so he saw that Blondy was very pale. Yes, there were even little beads visible, as the lantern light struck aslant upon his forehead. It astonished Ronicky so much that for the moment his mind was dizzy and refused to act. Still Blondy was smiling, and yet the smile, which had seemed so real at a little distance, was a stiff, carved image of a smile, now that it was seen at close hand. Indeed it looked for all the world as though Blondy was in a blue funk.
That, Ronicky knew, could not be true. He had tried the courage of Blondy and believed it to be faultless. He had stood by and seen Blondy draw a gun with a nerve and hand as steady as though he were at target work.
"Go ahead," said Ronicky, as the big man turned toward the saddle. "You don't need to worry. I ain't going to shoot you in the back, Blondy!"
Blondy shuddered and jerked about. His face was now positively ghastly. He had seemed a carefree boy a few moments before. Now he was a gray-faced old man.
"How do I know?" he snarled, grown suddenly vicious.
Ronicky Doone blinked at him. He could not believe his eyes.
"How do you know? Why, because you know that I ain't that kind!"
Blondy ground his teeth. He seemed for all the world like a man striving vainly to lash himself into a temper.
"I know nothing about you," he said.
"Then I'll stand back as far as you want," said Ronicky coldly. "But if—"
He got no farther with his offer. Blondy, turning as though to listen and consider the new proposal, now continued his turn until he was directly facing Ronicky, and at the same time he leaped out and hurled his whole great weight at Ronicky. Quick as a cat's paw works, Ronicky side-stepped, but he was too close to have a chance at maneuvering. The great left arm of Blondy shot around him. In another moment the other arm of the big man got its hold, and Ronicky was lifted from the ground in arms which constricted like shrinking bands of hot steel around him, threatening to break every bone in his body.
It seemed at first, by the savage and animal-like snarling of Blondy, that this was indeed his purpose, to half strangle Ronicky in mid-air and then finish the work by dashing him upon the ground. Never had Ronicky dreamed that a mere man could possess such herculean powers.
"You rat!" breathed Charlie Loring, and then, as though the surety of his victory restored his mental balance to some degree, he turned and strode forward through the door of the barn, still bearing Ronicky securely trussed in his arms.
It was in vain that Ronicky kicked and squirmed and struggled to be free. He was of average weight and of vastly more than average strength and activity, but caught unprepared, his agility neutralized by the surprise attack, he was perfectly helpless, and now every struggle only served to make the grip of Charlie sink more deeply into his body.
Then Ronicky went sick, almost fainted, as the sickening degradation to which he was going to be exposed was revealed to him. It was the purpose of Charlie Loring to take his captive straight into the big house and there, before Bennett and Elsie Bennett and whatever hands might be on the place, show Ronicky helpless in his hands!
Every step of the way the certainty grew until at last, as they reached the door of the bouse, Ronicky gasped: "Blondy, if you take me inside like this, you'll have to kill me; because if you don't I'll get you sure for this."
"Bah!" answered Blondy. "When I get through with you, Doone, you ain't going to be able to lift your hands as high as your head for a year. Just lay to that and keep your mouth shut. I'm running this little party from now on!" And he kicked open the door and strode into the house.
The room in which he entered held both Bennett and the girl. There was no chance for Ronicky to steel himself against the shock. But all in a flash he found himself before them, and then he was crashed down into a chair with a force that stunned him, and his gun belt was torn from him. After that, Blondy stood behind the chair, with a revolver jammed against Ronicky's neck.
And the latter looked miserably at Bennett and the girl.
Of course they had risen, as Blondy entered, the girl with an exclamation which identified her, if identification was needed, as she whom Ronicky had encountered near the brook so short a time before. And now that he could see her in the full light of the room, he felt that Al Jenkins had not exaggerated in his description of her. Blue, starry eyes and lighted hair of gold and features modeled with exquisite nicety, Ronicky had never before seen such a face in all his wide wanderings. Scorn and anger now made her eyes wide.
"That's he!" she cried to a whiteheaded man. "That's the man who spoke to me, I know! Oh, Charlie, I was right! He was sneaking somewhere near, and he followed you!"
"The hound!" growled the old man, shaking his venerable locks in detestation of such rascally work. And he folded his arms across his thin chest and glowered at Ronicky. He looked like a picture of a type— that type which is supposed to be represented in the gentlemen of the South, with fluffs of hair grown long, and wide mustaches made to bristle out in spikes or tufts, according to the fancy of the wearer, and nicely pointed beard. They have weary, droop-lidded eyes, these men of the fanciful Southland; they have erect, martial bearing, and their manner can rise to great heights of pomposity.
Such, in every detail, was the picture of Stephen Bennett who had conducted the long war against Al Jenkins. He had won at first, but now he was fallen on declining fortunes. The room in which he and his daughter had been reading, showed unmistakable signs of the loss of money. It had at one time been furnished with some elegance, for that section of the country. But the upholstery on the chairs was now sadly worn. The very pictures on the wall seemed to have faded. And only under the shelter of the great round center table did the carpet retain the pristine vigor of its color and design.
In the costume of Steve Bennett the same disrepair showed. He was wearing a long Prince Albert of faded cloth which went most inappropriately with the rather unclean riding boots on his feet and the much cheaper trousers. But he wore that Prince Albert in the way that makes one address the possessor as "colonel"; and he thrust out his breast as though it supported a row of medals.
In this fashion he looked down upon Ronicky Doone, striding toward him so brusquely and towering so high and so close above him that Ronicky would not have been surprised if the bony old fist had been dashed into his face.
In the meantime big Blondy was telling a strange story. He was pouring grain into the feed box of the gray, he declared, when he heard what was much like the sound of a stealthy footfall behind him. He had waited cautiously for a moment until he made sure that he who approached was close to him; and then he had whirled and discovered Ronicky Doone, stealing up with leveled revolver.
In the same motion with which he had whirled, he struck the weapon from the hand of the astonished Ronicky, and the next moment the would-be murderer was helpless in his arms. And here he was. He, Blondy, wanted to turn the hound loose and kick him off the place after disarming him, but he decided that it might not be well to leave such a sneak to wander near the premises. And for that reason he had decided to bring him in and allow Steve Bennett and Elsie to have a chance to pass judgment upon the villain.
This astounding story he told with the utmost fluidity and even with an air of indifference. It was not, he insisted, because he had the slightest desire to persecute this treacherous rascal, that he had brought him here. But something should be done as an example.
It was typical of father and daughter that, when the sordid recital was ended, the former drew closer, and the latter drew back.
"To think that I was within arm's reach of him tonight!" breathed Elsie. "And— and that I thought his laugh was frank and manly! Oh!" Words failed her. Her father spoke. "This— this vermin," he said, "ought to be tried in the courts of the law, Loring. But we ain't got courts of law around Twin Springs."
He shook his head and took a turn through the room, with one hand thrust into the breast of his coat and the other crossed upon the small of his back.
"Yes, sir," he said, "the damnation truth— pardon me, Elsie— but it is the damnation truth that there ain't justice to be had in the courts where the influence of that snake, Jenkins, reaches. There ain't any justice, and there ain't any chance of justice. He's got folks so much in the palm of his hand that they can't put him and wrongdoing in the same sentence, or even in the same day. Because he spent some money on a road, they got him worked up into a saint. I never seen anything like it! And more than that, if he wants to back up a man, there ain't any power that dares to put out a hand to stop the man that Al Jenkins has picked. And all that Jenkins would need to do to keep this murderer of his—"
"Father!" cried the girl. "Do you really think that he sent this— this creature to kill Charlie Loring?"
"Do I think it? Bah! I know it! I know the workings of his reptile mind! And what can we do? If we harm this man seriously we'll have to answer for it in the courts which Jenkins controls. If we don't harm him, a flock of Jenkins' other assistants of the same sort will be out here and after us! No sir! It ain't any trouble to Jenkins if I have just a bunch of worn-out tramps working my range for me, men that'll close their eyes when the rustlers want to run off some cows. That don't mean nothing to Jenkins, but when it comes to letting me have a real honest-injun man like Charlie Loring, why, that's a different yarn altogether. He's going to get Loring away from me. If he can do it with fair play, well enough; but if he can't he'll try dirty means. So he's sent this hound out here. Charlie, I near forget myself when I think of it!"
He fairly swelled with a poisonous anger. But the detestation in the face of the girl was what bowed the head of Ronicky and crushed his spirit. It made little difference that this was all blindest injustice. What mattered was that she should be able to scorn him so utterly. Out of that pit of wretchedness he could never climb to good esteem, he felt.
"Which all narrows the thing down," said the rancher, "and leaves us only one thing to do, namely, to call the boys together at breakfast to-morrow and turn Ronicky over to them. Just let Charlie Loring stand up and tell 'em what he's told us, and then let the boys be alone for five minutes with this Ronicky Doone. When they're through with him, I guess he'll be punished enough!"
He rubbed his hands violently together. The perfect thought grew upon his mind and entranced him.
"There'll be justice done!" he cried.
And Ronicky Doone looked in horror at Charlie Loring to see if he would protest, but the handsome face of the big man was set and hard, and his eyes were glittering. No doubt remained that the mind of Loring was made up. The greatest possible evil that could be inflicted upon Ronicky Doone was, in the eyes of Loring, the greatest possible good. Only the girl cried out in a protest for which Ronicky could have blessed her.
"But father!" she exclaimed. "That's worse than death, almost, if they mob him! You know what happened to that man of ours when he—"
"I do remember," said Stephen Bennett, "and that's just exactly why I propose to see to it that the same thing happens to Ronicky Doone. Our man very foolishly tried to steal a cow. This man tried to steal a human life. Does that answer you, Elsie?"
And Ronicky knew. Three or four times he had seen such things happen, though luckily his hands were clean of guilt. But he had seen the lynching of a horse thief, and more than that, he had seen the mobbing of a sneak who attempted a murder— not a fair fight, gun to gun, and man to man, but a shooting from behind, just of the nature of which big Blondy was about to accuse him. What had happened to that man had been so terrible that Ronicky had never dared recall the picture in its entirety.
And now he was in the same situation. The full and consummate cruelty of the rancher struck home in his mind, and he merely bowed his head still lower.
Of what use were words?
He would never forget what followed. Old Steve Bennett left the room, was gone for a minute, and then returned with an accompanying sound of clanking iron. When he reappeared he carried manacles in his hand.
"Old-fashioned irons, but strong," he told Charlie Loring. "Like a lot of old-fashioned things, they don't look as good as they really are." And he snapped them over the wrists of Ronicky. Here the girl protested again.
"Charlie— father!" she exclaimed, coming between them and Ronicky. "There's something wrong about all this. He— he might have something to say. Why don't we give him a chance to talk— to explain— perhaps to put forward his side of the story."
Charlie Loring fired into a rage at once.
"D'you think there is another side to the story?" he asked.
"No, no! Don't lose your temper, Charlie. I only mean that he should have a chance to talk. Men have that right in a law court. Why shouldn't we give him that right here?"
"Nobody's stopping him from talking," said Charlie Loring, but the scowl with which he turned upon Ronicky was thunderous in blackness. "Go ahead and tell your little lie, Ronicky. We ain't stopping you!"
He stepped back, his face working and pale, and the fingers with which he rolled his cigarette were uneasy at their work.
"Look at him!" said Ronicky Doone. "Does he look like a gent that's just finished telling the truth, or like a liar that figures his lie might possibly be found out?"
"You—" cried Charlie Loring. He crushed the cigarette to shapelessness and stepped a long stride toward Ronicky, but Elsie Bennett faced him and pushed him back with the lightest pressure of her hand.
"Why, Charlie!" she cried, and again, "Why, Charlie!"
"Al Jenkins is right," thought Ronicky in the depths of his miserable heart. "She's an angel! She'll look right through him!"
Charlie Loring was facing the girl in desperation.
"You weren't going to strike him when his hands are in the irons?" she asked, wonder and a tinge of scorn giving her voice an edge.
"I— I've stood a good deal from him, Elsie," said the big man. "I saved his hoss to-day and might have throwed my life away doing it, with that posse of madmen spurring down the trail to get at me. And after doing that for him, he comes and tried to kill me from behind. Ain't that enough to make a gent forget himself?"
"I suppose it is," said Elsie Bennett and turned toward Ronicky, with a peculiar mixture of loathing and curiosity. He met her glance. His own eyes widened to meet it. For a moment they stared steadily at each other, and with all his might he was sending the message to her through that glance: "Don't you see that I'm an honest man?"
Some of the loathing finally passed from her expression. She came a little closer and no longer held her skirts together, as though in touching him they might float against a permanent defilement.
"Talk," she said. "Tell us what you have to say to explain yourself!"
Ronicky Doone smiled and shook his head.
"I tell you seriously," said the girl, "that if you don't talk you'll be given to-morrow morning, a terrible punishment for what you've tried to do."
Again he shook his head, again he smiled faintly, and Steve