Kitabı oku: «Whispering Smith», sayfa 5
CHAPTER XI
AT THE THREE HORSES
“Clean them out of the Rocky Mountains; that is a pretty good contract,” mused the man in McCloud’s office on Sunday morning. He sat opposite McCloud in Bucks’s old easy chair and held in his hand Bucks’s telegram. As he spoke he raised his eyebrows and settled back, but the unusual depth of the chair and the shortness of his legs left his chin helpless in his black tie, so that he was really no better off except that he had changed one position of discomfort for another. “I wonder, now,” he mused, sitting forward again as McCloud watched him, “I wonder–you know, George, the Andes are, strictly speaking, a part of the great North American chain–whether Bucks meant to include the South American ranges in that message?” and a look of mildly good-natured anticipation overspread his face.
“Suppose you wire him and find out,” suggested McCloud.
“No, George, no! Bucks never was accurate in geographical expressions. Besides, he is shifty and would probably cover his tracks by telling me to report progress when I got to Panama.”
A clerk opened the outer office door. “Mr. Dancing asks if he can see you, Mr. McCloud.”
“Tell him I am busy.”
Bill Dancing, close on the clerk’s heels, spoke for himself. “I know it, Mr. McCloud, I know it!” he interposed urgently, “but let me speak to you just a moment.” Hat in hand, Bill, because no one would knock him down to keep him out, pushed into the room. “I’ve got a plan,” he urged, “in regards to getting these hold-ups.”
“How are you, Bill?” exclaimed the man in the easy chair, jumping hastily to his feet and shaking Dancing’s hand. Then quite as hastily he sat down, crossed his knees violently, stared at the giant lineman, and exclaimed, “Let’s have it!”
Dancing looked at him in silence and with some contempt. The trainmaster had broken in on the superintendent for a moment and the two were conferring in an undertone. “What might your name be, mister?” growled Dancing, addressing with some condescension the man in the easy chair.
The man waved his hand as if it were immaterial and answered with a single word: “Forgotten!”
“How’s that?”
“Forgotten!”
“That’s a blamed queer name–”
“On the contrary, it’s a very common name and that is just the trouble: it’s forgotten.”
“What do you want, Bill?” demanded McCloud, turning to the lineman.
“Is this man all right?” asked Dancing, jerking his thumb toward the easy chair.
“I can’t say; you’ll have to ask him.”
“I’ll save you that trouble, Bill, by saying that if it’s for the good of the division I am all right. Death to its enemies, damme, say I. Now go on, William, and give us your plan in regards to getting these hold-ups–yes.”
Dancing looked from one man to the other, but McCloud appeared preoccupied and his visitor seemed wholly serious. “I don’t want to take too much on myself–” Bill began, speaking to McCloud.
“You look as if you could carry a fair-sized load, William, provided it bore the right label,” suggested the visitor, entirely amiable.
“–But nobody has felt worse over this thing and recent things–”
“Recent things,” echoed the easy chair.
“–happening to the division that I have. Now I know there’s been trouble on the division–”
“I think you are putting it too strong there, Bill, but let it pass.”
“–there’s been differences; misunderstandings and differences. So I says to myself maybe something might be done to get everybody together and bury the differences, like this: Murray Sinclair is in town; he feels bad over this thing, like any railroad man would. He’s a mountain man, quick as the quickest with a gun, a good trailer, rides like a fiend, and can catch a streak of sunshine travelling on a pass. Why not put him at the head of a party to run ’em down?”
“Run ’em down,” nodded the stranger.
“Differences such as be or may be–”
“May be–”
“Being discussed when he brings ’em in dead or alive, and not before. That’s what I said to Murray Sinclair, and Murray Sinclair is ready for to take hold this minute and do what he can if he’s asked. I told him plain I could promise no promises; that, I says, lays with George McCloud. Was I right, was I wrong? If I was wrong, right me; if I was right, say so. All I want is harmony.”
The new man nodded approval. “Bully, Bill!” he exclaimed heartily.
“Mister,” protested the lineman, with simple dignity, “I’d just a little rather you wouldn’t bully me nor Bill me.”
“All in good part, Bill, as you shall see; all in good part. Now before Mr. McCloud gives you his decision I want to be allowed a word. Your idea looks good to me. At first I may say it didn’t. I am candid; I say it didn’t. It looked like setting a dog to catch his own tail. Mind you, I don’t say it can’t be done. A dog can catch his own tail; they do do it,” proclaimed the stranger in a low and emphatic undertone. “But,” he added, moderating his utterance, “when they succeed–who gets anything out of it but the dog?” Bill Dancing, somewhat clouded and not deeming it well to be drawn into any damaging admissions, looked around for a cigar, and not seeing one, looked solemnly at the new Solomon and stroked his beard. “That is how it looked to me at first,” concluded the orator; “but, I say now it looks good to me, and as a stranger I may say I favor it.”
Dancing tried to look unconcerned and seemed disposed to be friendly. “What might be your line of business?”
“Real estate. I am from Chicago. I sold everything that was for sale in Chicago and came out here to stake out the Spanish Sinks and the Great Salt Lake–yes. It’s drying up and there’s an immense opportunity for claims along the shore. I’ve been looking into it.”
“Into the claims or into the lake?” asked McCloud.
“Into both; and, Mr. McCloud, I want to say I favor Mr. Dancing’s idea, that’s all. Right wrongs no man. Let Bill see Sinclair and see what they can figure out.” And having spoken, the stranger sank back and tried to look comfortable.
“I’ll talk with you later about it, Bill,” said McCloud briefly.
“Meantime, Bill, see Sinclair and report,” suggested the stranger.
“It’s as good as done,” announced Dancing, taking up his hat, “and, Mr. McCloud, might I have a little advance for cigars and things?”
“Cigars and ammunition–of course. See Sykes, William, see Sykes; if the office is closed go to his house–and see what will happen to you–” added the visitor in an aside, “and tell him to telephone up to Mr. McCloud for instruction,” he concluded unceremoniously.
“Now why do you want to start Bill on a fool business like that?” asked McCloud, as Bill Dancing took long steps from the room toward the office of Sykes, the cashier.
“He didn’t know me to-day, but he will to-morrow,” said the stranger reflectively. “Gods, what I’ve seen that man go through in the days of the giants! Why, George, this will keep the boys talking, and they have to do something. Spend the money; the company is making it too fast anyway; they moved twenty-two thousand cars one day last week. Personally I’m glad to have a little fun out of it; it will be hell pure and undefiled long before we get through. This will be an easy way of letting Sinclair know I am here. Bill will report me confidentially to him as a suspicious personage.”
To the astonishment of Sykes, the superintendent confirmed over the telephone Dancing’s statement that he was to draw some expense money. Bill asked for twenty-five dollars. Sykes offered him two, and Bill with some indignation accepted five. He spent all of this in trying to find Sinclair, and on the strength of his story to the boys borrowed five dollars more to prosecute the search. At ten o’clock that night he ran into Sinclair playing cards in the big room above the Three Horses.
The Three Horses still rears its hospitable two-story front in Fort Street, the only one of the Medicine Bend gambling houses that goes back to the days of ’67; and it is the boast of its owners that since the key was thrown away, thirty-nine years ago, its doors have never been closed, night or day, except once for two hours during the funeral of Dave Hawk. Bill Dancing drew Sinclair from his game and told him of the talk with McCloud, touching it up with natural enthusiasm. The bridgeman took the news in high good humor and slapped Dancing on the back. “Did you see him alone, Bill?” asked Sinclair, with interest. “Come over here, come along. I want you to meet a good friend. Here, Harvey, shake hands with Bill Dancing. Bill, this is old Harvey Du Sang, meanest man in the mountains to his enemies and the whitest to his friends–eh, Harvey?”
Harvey seemed uncommunicative. Studying his hand, he asked in a sour way whether it was a jackpot, and upon being told that it was not, pushed forward some chips and looked stupidly up–though Harvey was by no means stupid. “Proud to know you, sir,” said Bill, bending frankly as he put out his hand. “Proud to know any friend of Murray Sinclair’s. What might be your business?”
Again Du Sang appeared abstracted. He looked up at the giant lineman, who, in spite of his own size and strength, could have crushed him between his fingers, and hitched his chair a little, but got no further toward an answer and paid no attention whatever to Bill’s extended hand.
“Cow business, Bill,” interposed Sinclair. “Where? Why, up near the park, Bill, up near the park. Bill is an old friend of mine, Harvey. Shake hands with George Seagrue, Bill, and you know Henry Karg–and old Stormy Gorman–well, I guess you know him too,” exclaimed Sinclair, introducing the other players. “Look here a minute, Harvey.”
Harvey, much against his inclination, was drawn from the table and retired with Sinclair and Dancing to an empty corner, where Dancing told his story again. At the conclusion of it Harvey rather snorted. Sinclair asked questions. “Was anybody else there when you saw McCloud, Bill?”
“One man,” answered Bill impressively.
“Who?”
“A stranger to me.”
“A stranger? What did he look like?”
“Slender man and kind of odd talking, with a sandy mustache.”
“Hear his name?”
“He told me his name, but it’s skipped me, I declare. He’s kind of dark-complected like.”
“Stranger, eh?” mused Du Sang; his eyes were wandering over the room.
“Slender man,” repeated Bill, “but I didn’t take much notice of him. Said he was in the real-estate business.”
“In the real-estate business? And did he sit there while you talked this over with the college guy?” muttered Du Sang.
“He is all right, boys, and he said you’d know his name if I could speak it,” declared Bill.
“Look anything like that man standing with his hands in his pockets over there by the wheel?” asked Du Sang, turning his back carefully on a new-comer as he made the suggestion.
“Where–there? No! Yes, hold on, that’s the man there now! Hold on, now!” urged Bill, struggling with the excitement of ten hours and ten dollars all in one day. “His name sounded like Fogarty.”
As Dancing spoke, Sinclair’s eyes riveted on the new face at the other side of the gambling-room. “Fogarty, hell!” he exclaimed, starting. “Stand right still, Du Sang; don’t look around. That man is Whispering Smith.”
CHAPTER XII
PARLEY
It was recalled one evening not long ago at the Wickiup that the affair with Sinclair had all taken place within a period of two years, and that practically all of the actors in the event had been together and in friendly relation on a Thanksgiving Day at the Dunning ranch not so very long before the trouble began. Dicksie Dunning was away at school at the time, and Lance Dunning was celebrating with a riding and shooting fest and a barbecue.
The whole country had been invited. Bucks was in the mountains on an inspection trip, and Bill Dancing drove him with a party of railroad men over from Medicine Bend. The mountain men for a hundred and fifty miles around were out. Gene and Bob Johnson, from Oroville and the Peace River, had come with their friends. From Williams Cache there was not only a big delegation–more of one than was really desirable–but it was led by old John Rebstock himself. When the invitation is general, lines cannot be too closely drawn. Not only was Lance Dunning something of a sport himself, but on the Long Range it is part of a stockman’s creed to be on good terms with his neighbors. At a Thanksgiving Day barbecue not even a mountain sheriff would ask questions, and Ed Banks, though present, respected the holiday truce. Cowboys rode that day in the roping contest who were from Mission Creek and from Two Feather River.
Among the railroad people were George McCloud, Anderson, the assistant superintendent, Farrell Kennedy, chief of the special service, and his right-hand man, Bob Scott. In especial, Sinclair’s presence at the barbecue was recalled. He had some cronies with him from among his up-country following, and was introducing his new bridge foreman, Karg, afterward known as Flat Nose, and George Seagrue, the Montana cowboy. Sinclair fraternized that day with the Williams Cache men, and it was remarked even then that though a railroad man he appeared somewhat outside the railroad circle. When the shooting matches were announced a brown-eyed railroad man was asked to enter. He had been out of the mountains for some time and was a comparative stranger in the gathering, but the Williams Cache men had not forgotten him; Rebstock, especially, wanted to see him shoot. While much of the time out of the mountains on railroad business, he was known to be closely in Bucks’s counsels, and as to the mountains themselves, he was reputed to know them better than Bucks or Glover himself knew them. This was Whispering Smith; but, beyond a low-voiced greeting or an expression of surprise at meeting an old acquaintance, he avoided talk. When urged to shoot he resisted all persuasion and backed up his refusal by showing a bruise on his trigger finger. He declined even to act as judge in the contest, suggesting the sheriff, Ed Banks, for that office.
The rifle matches were held in the hills above the ranch-house, and in the contest between the ranches, for which a sweepstakes had been arranged, Sinclair entered Seagrue, who was then working for him. Seagrue shot all the morning and steadily held up the credit of the Frenchman Valley Ranch against the field. Neither continued shooting nor severe tests availed to upset Sinclair’s entry, and riding back after the matches with the prize purse in his pocket, Seagrue, who was tall, light-haired, and perfectly built, made a new honor for himself on a dare from Stormy Gorman, the foreman of the Dunning ranch. Gorman, who had ridden a race back with Sinclair, was at the foot of the long hill, down which the crowd was riding, when he stopped, yelled back at Seagrue, and, swinging his hat from his head, laid it on a sloping rock beside the trail.
“You’d better not do that, Stormy,” said Sinclair. “Seagrue will put a hole through it.”
Gorman laughed jealously. “If he can hit it, let him hit it.”
At the top of the hill Seagrue had dismounted and was making ready to shoot. Whispering Smith, at his side, had halted with the party, and the cowboy knelt to adjust his sights. On his knee he turned to Whispering Smith, whom he seemed to know, with an abrupt question: “How far do you call it?”
The answer was made without hesitation: “Give it seven hundred and fifty yards, Seagrue.”
The cowboy made ready, brought his rifle to his shoulder, and fired. The slug passed through the crown of the hat, and a shower of splinters flying back from the rock blew the felt into a sieve. Gorman’s curiosity, as well as that of everybody else, seemed satisfied, and, gaining the level ground, the party broke into a helter-skelter race for the revolver-shooting.
In this Sinclair himself had entered, and after the early matches found only one troublesome contestant–Du Sang from the Cache, who was present under Rebstock’s wing. After Sinclair and Du Sang had tied in test after test at shooting out of the saddle, Whispering Smith, who lost sight of nothing in the gun-play, called for a pack of cards, stripped the aces from the deck, and had a little conference with the judge. The two contestants, Sinclair and Du Sang, were ordered back thirty-five paces on their horses, and the railroad man, walking over to the targets, held out between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand the ace of clubs. The man that should first spot the pip out of the card was to take the prize, a Cheyenne saddle. Sinclair shot, and his horse, perfectly trained, stood like a statue. The card flew from Smith’s hand, but the bullet had struck the ace almost an inch above the pip, and a second ace was held out for Du Sang. As he raised his gun his horse moved. He spurred angrily, circled quickly about, halted, and instantly fired. It was not alone that his bullet cut the shoulder of the club pip on the card: the whole movement, beginning with the circling dash of the horse under the spur, the sudden halt, and the instantly accurate aim, raised a quick, approving yell for the new-comer. The signal was given for Sinclair, and a third ace went up. In the silence Sinclair, with deliberate care, brought his gun down on the card, fired, and cut the pip cleanly from the white field. Du Sang was urged to shoot again, but his horse annoyed him and he would not.
With a little speech the prize was given by Ed Banks to Sinclair. “Here’s hoping your gun will never be trained on me, Murray,” smiled the modest sheriff.
Sinclair responded in high humor. He had every reason to feel good. His horses had won the running races, and his crowd had the honors with the guns. He turned on Du Sang, who sat close by in the circle of horsemen, and, holding the big prize out toward him on his knee, asked him to accept it. “It’s yours by rights anyway, Du Sang,” declared Sinclair. “You’re a whole lot better shot than I am, every turn of the road. You’ve shot all day from a nervous horse.”
Not only would Sinclair not allow a refusal of his gift, but, to make his generosity worth while, he dispatched Flat Nose to the corral, and the foreman rode back leading the pony that had won the half-mile dash. Sinclair cinched the prize saddle on the colt with his own hands, led the beast to Du Sang, placed the bridle in his hand, and bowed. “From a jay to a marksman,” he said, saluting.
Du Sang, greatly embarrassed by the affair–he had curious pink eyes–blinked and got away to the stables. When Rebstock joined him the Williams Cache party were saddling to go home. Du Sang made no reference to his gift horse and saddle, but spoke of the man that had held the target aces. “He must be a sucker!” declared Du Sang, with an oath. “I wouldn’t do that for any man on top of ground. Who is he?”
“That man?” wheezed Rebstock. “Never have no dealings with him. He plays ’most any kind of a game. He’s always ready to play, and holds aces most of the time. Don’t you remember my telling about the man that got Chuck Williams and hauled him out of the Cache on a buckboard? That’s the man. Here, he give me this for you; it’s your card.” Rebstock handed Du Sang the target ace of clubs. “Why didn’t you thank Murray Sinclair, you mule?”
Du Sang, whose eyelashes were white, blinked at the hole through the card, and looked around as he rode back across the field for the man that had held it; but Whispering Smith had disappeared.
He was at that moment walking past the barbecue pit with George McCloud. “Rebstock talks a great deal about your shooting, Gordon,” said McCloud to his companion.
“He and I once had a little private match of our own. It was on the Peace River, over a bunch of steers. Since then we have got along very well, though he has an exaggerated opinion of my ability. Rebstock’s worst failing is his eyesight. It bothers him in seeing brands. He’s liable to brand a critter half a dozen times. That albino, Du Sang, is a queer duck. Sinclair gave him a fine horse. There they go.” The Cache riders were running their horses and whooping across the creek. “What a hand a State’s prison warden at Fort City could draw out of that crowd, George!” continued McCloud’s companion. “If the right man should get busy with that bunch of horses Sinclair has got together, and organize those up-country fellows for mischief, wouldn’t it make things hum on the mountain division for a while?”
McCloud did not meet the host, Lance Dunning, that day, nor since the day of the barbecue had Du Sang or Sinclair seen Whispering Smith until the night Du Sang spotted him near the wheel in the Three Horses. Du Sang at once drew out of his game and left the room. Sinclair in the meantime had undertaken a quarrelsome interview with Whispering Smith.
“I supposed you knew I was here,” said Smith to him amiably. “Of course I don’t travel in a private car or carry a bill-board on my back, but I haven’t been hiding.”
“The last time we talked,” returned Sinclair, measuring words carefully, “you were going to stay out of the mountains.”
“I should have been glad to, Murray. Affairs are in such shape on the division now that somebody had to come, so they sent for me.”
The two men were sitting at a table. Whispering Smith was cutting and leisurely mixing a pack of cards.
“Well, so far as I’m concerned, I’m out of it,” Sinclair went on after a pause, “but, however that may be, if you’re back here looking for trouble there’s no reason, I guess, why you can’t find it.”
“That’s not it. I’m not here looking for trouble; I’m here to fix this thing up. What do you want?”
“Not a thing.”
“I’m willing to do anything fair and right,” declared Whispering Smith, raising his voice a little above the hum of the rooms.
“Fair and right is an old song.”
“And a good one to sing in this country just now. I’ll do anything I can to adjust any grievance, Murray. What do you want?”
Sinclair for a moment was silent, and his answer made plain his unwillingness to speak at all. “There never would have been a grievance if I’d been treated like a white man.” His eyes burned sullenly. “I’ve been treated like a dog.”
“That is not it.”
“That is it,” declared Sinclair savagely, “and they’ll find it’s it.”
“Murray, I want to say only this–only this to make things clear. Bucks feels that he’s been treated worse than a dog.”
“Then let him put me back where I belong.”
“It’s a little late for that, Murray; a little late,” said Smith gently. “Shouldn’t you rather take good money and get off the division? Mind you, I say good money, Murray–and peace.”
Sinclair answered without the slightest hesitation: “Not while that man McCloud is here.”
Whispering Smith smiled. “I’ve got no authority to kill McCloud.”
“There are plenty of men in the mountains that don’t need any.”
“But let’s start fair,” urged Whispering Smith softly. He leaned forward with one finger extended in confidence. “Don’t let us have any misunderstanding on the start. Let McCloud alone. If he is killed–now I’m speaking fair and open and making no threats, but I know how it will come out–there will be nothing but killing here for six months. We will make just that memorandum on McCloud. Now about the main question. Every sensible man in the world wants something.”
“I know men that have been going a long time without what they wanted.”
Smith flushed and nodded. “You needn’t have said that, but no matter. Every sensible man wants something Murray. This is a big country. There’s a World’s Fair running somewhere all the time in it. Why not travel a little? What do you want?”
“I want my job, or I want a new superintendent here.”
“Just exactly the two things, and, by heavens! the only two, I can’t manage. Come once more and I’ll meet you.”
“No!” Sinclair rose to his feet. “No–damn your money! This is my home. The high country is my country; it’s where my friends are.”
“It’s filled with your friends; I know that. But don’t put your trust in your friends. They will stay by you, I know; but once in a long while there will be a false friend, Murray, one that will sell you–remember that.”
“I stay.”
Whispering Smith looked up in admiration. “I know you’re game. It isn’t necessary for me to say that to you. But think of the fight you are going into against this company. You can worry them; you’ve done it. But a bronco might as well try to buck a locomotive as for one man or six or six hundred to win out in the way you are playing.”
“I will look out for my friends; others–” Sinclair hitched his belt and paused, but Whispering Smith, cutting and running the cards, gave no heed. His eyes were fixed on the green cloth under his fingers. “Others–” repeated Sinclair.
“Others?” echoed Whispering Smith good-naturedly.
“May look out for themselves.”
“Of course, of course! Well, if this is the end of it, I’m sorry.”
“You will be sorry if you mix in a quarrel that is none of yours.”
“Why, Murray, I never had a quarrel with a man in my life.”
“You are pretty smooth, but you can’t drive me out of this country. I know how well you’d like to do it; and, take notice, there’s one trail you can’t cross even if you stay here. I suppose you understand that.”
Smith felt his heart leap. He sat in his chair turning the pack slowly, but with only one hand now; the other hand was free. Sinclair eyed him sidewise. Smith moistened his lips and when he replied spoke slowly: “There is no need of dragging any allusion to her into it. For that matter, I told Bucks he should have sent any man but me. If I’m in the way, Sinclair, if my presence here is all that stands in the way, I’ll go back and stay back as before, and send any one else you like or Bucks likes. Are you willing to say that I stand in the way of a settlement?”
Sinclair sat down and put his hands on the table. “No; your matter and mine is another affair. All I want between you and me is fair and right.”
Whispering Smith’s eyes were on the cards. “You’ve always had it.”
“Then keep away from her.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Then don’t tell me.”
“I’m not telling you. You will do as you please; so will I. I left here because Marion asked me to. I am here now because I have been sent here. It is in the course of my business. I have my living to earn and my friends to protect. Don’t dictate to me, because it would be of no use.”
“Well, you know now how to get into trouble.”
“Every one knows that; few know how to keep out.”
“You can’t lay your finger on me at any turn of the road.”
“Not if you behave yourself.”
“And you can’t bully me.”
“Surely not. No hard feelings, Murray. I came for a friendly talk, and if it’s all the same to you I’ll watch this wheel awhile and then go over to the Wickiup. I leave first–that’s understood, I hope–and if your pink-eyed friend is waiting outside tell him there is nothing doing, will you, Murray? Who is the albino, by the way? You don’t know him? I think I do. Fort City, if I remember. Well, good-night, Murray.”
It was after twelve o’clock and the room had filled up. Roulette-balls were dropping, and above the faro-table the extra lights were on. The dealers, fresh from supper, were putting things in order for the long trick.
At the Wickiup Whispering Smith found McCloud in the office signing letters. “I can do nothing with him,” said Smith, drawing down a window-shade before he seated himself to detail his talk with Sinclair. “He wants a fight.”
McCloud put down his pen. “If I am the disturber it would be better for me to get out.”
“That would be hauling down the flag across the whole division. It is too late for that. If he didn’t centre the fight on you he would centre it somewhere else. The whole question is, who is going to run this division, Sinclair and his gang or the company? and it is as easy to meet them on one point as another. I know of no way of making this kind of an affair pleasant. I am going to do some riding, as I told you. Kennedy is working up through the Deep Creek country, and has three men with him. I shall ride toward the Cache and meet him somewhere near South Mission Pass.”
“Gordon, would it do any good to ask a few questions?”
“Ask as many as you like, my dear boy, but don’t be disappointed if I can’t answer them. I can look wise, but I don’t know anything. You know what we are up against. This fellow has grown a tiger among the wolves, and he has turned the pack loose on us. One thing I ask you to do. Don’t expose yourself at night. Your life isn’t worth a coupling-pin if you do.”
McCloud raised his hand. “Take care of yourself. If you are murdered in this fight I shall know I got you in and that I am to blame.”
“And suppose you were?” Smith had risen from his chair. He had few mannerisms, and recalling the man the few times I have seen him, the only impression he has left on me is that of quiet and gentleness. “Suppose you were?” He was resting one arm on top of McCloud’s desk. “What of it? You have done for me up here what I couldn’t do, George. You have been kind to Marion when she hadn’t a friend near. You have stood between him and her when I couldn’t be here to do it, and when she didn’t want me to–helped her when I hadn’t the privilege of doing it.” McCloud put up his hand in protest, but it was unheeded. “How many times it has been in my heart to kill that man. She knows it; she prays it may never happen. That is why she stays here and has kept me out of the mountains. She says they would talk about her if I lived in the same town, and I have stayed away.” He threw himself back into the chair. “It’s going beyond both of us now. I’ve kept the promise I made to her to-day to do all in my power to settle this thing without bloodshed. It will not be settled in that way, George.”
“Was he at Sugar Buttes?”
“If not, his gang was there. The quick get-away, the short turn on Van Horn, killing two men to rattle the posse– it all bears Sinclair’s ear-marks. He has gone too far. He has piled up plunder till he is reckless. He is crazy with greed and insane with revenge. He thinks he can gallop over this division and scare Bucks till he gets down on his knees to him. Bucks will never do it. I know him, and I tell you Bucks will never do it. He is like that man in Washington: he will fight it to the death. He would fight Sinclair if he had to come up here and meet him single-handed, but, he will never have to do it. He put you here, George, to round that man up. This is the price for your advancement, and you must pay it.”
