CHAPTER VIII
BARBARA IS PUZZLED
Half an hour later, with Barbara Morgan, on "Billy"--a piebaldpinto--riding beside him, Harlan loped Purgatory out of Lamo. They took atrail--faint and narrow--that led southward, for Barbara had said thatthe Rancho Seco lay in that direction.
Harlan had not seen Deveny or Rogers or Lawson after the scene in frontof the sheriff's office. He had talked for some time with Gage, waitinguntil Barbara Morgan recovered slightly from the shock she had suffered.Then when he had told her that he intended to accompany her to the RanchoSeco--and she had offered no objection--he had gone on a quest for herpony, finding him in the stable in the rear of the Eating-House.
So far as Harlan knew, no one in Lamo besides Sheriff Gage had watchedthe departure of himself and Barbara. And there had been no word spokenbetween the two as they rode away--Lamo becoming at last an almostinvisible dot in the great yawning space they left behind them.
Barbara felt a curious unconcern for what was happening; her brain was ina state of dull apathy, resulting from shock and the period of dreadunder which she had lived for more than a day and a night.
She did not seem to care what happened to her. She knew, to be sure, thatshe was riding toward the Rancho Seco with a man whom she had heardcalled an outlaw by other men; she was aware that she must be riskingsomething by accepting his escort--and yet she could not bring herself tofeel that dread fear that she knew any young woman in her position shouldfeel.
It seemed to her that nothing mattered now--very much. Her father wasdead--murdered by some men--two of whom had been punished by death, andanother--a mysterious person called the "Chief"--who would be killed assoon as she could find him. That resolution was deeply fixed in her mind.
Her gaze though, after a while, went to Harlan, and for many miles shestudied him without his suspecting. And gradually she began to thinkabout him, to wonder why he had protected her from the man, Higgins, andwhy he was going with her to the Rancho Seco.
She provided--after a while--an answer to her first question: He hadprotected her because she had run into his arms in her effort to escapethe clutches of the man who had pursued her--Higgins. She remembered thatwhile she had been at the window, watching Harlan when he had dismountedin front of the sheriff's office, he had seemed to make a favorableimpression upon her.
That was the reason, when she had seen him before her in the street, afterhe had shot Laskar, she had selected him as a protector. That had seemedto be the logical thing to do, for he had arrayed himself against herenemies in killing Laskar, and it was reasonable to suppose--concedingLaskar and Higgins were leagued with Deveny--that Harlan would protecther.
It all seemed exceedingly natural, that far. It was when she began towonder why Harlan was with her now that an element of mystery seemed torule. And she was puzzled.
She began to speculate over Harlan, and her mental efforts in thatdirection banished the somber thoughts that had almost overwhelmed herafter the discovery of her father's death. Yet they had ridden more thanten miles before she spoke.
"What made you decide to ride with me to the Rancho Seco?" she demandedsharply.
Harlan flashed a grin at her. He was riding a little in advance of her,and he had to turn in the saddle to see her face.
"I was headin' that way, an' wanted company. It sure gets lonesome ridin'alone."
She caught her breath at this answer, for it seemed that he had notrevealed the real reason. And she had got her first good look at hisface. It was lean and strong. His eyes were deep-set and rimmed by heavylashes and brows, and there was a glow in them as he looked at her--acompelling fixity that held her. Her own drooped, and were lifted to hisagain in sheer curiosity, she thought at first.
It was only when she found herself, later, trying to catch his glanceagain that she realized they were magnetic eyes, and that the glow inthem was of a subtle quality that could not be analyzed at a glance.
The girl was alert to detect a certain expression in his eyes--a gleamthat would tell her what she half feared--that the motive that hadbrought him with her was like that which had caused Deveny to hold hercaptive. But she could detect no such expression in Harlan's eyes, shecould see a quizzical humor in his glances at times, or frank interest,and there were times when she saw a grim pity.
And the pity affected her strangely. It brought him close toher--figuratively; it convinced her that he was a man of warm sympathiesin spite of the reputation he held in the Territory.
She had heard her father speak of him--always with a sort of awe in hisvoice; and tales of his reckless daring, his Satanic cleverness with asix-shooter, of his ruthlessness, had reached her ears from othersources. He had seemed, then, like some evil character of mythology,remote and far, and not likely to appear in the flesh in her section ofthe country.
It seemed impossible that she had fled to such a man for protection--andthat he had protected her; and that she was now riding beside him--orslightly behind him--and that, to all appearances, he was quite asrespectful toward her as other men. That, she surmised, was what made itall seem so strange.
Harlan did not seem disposed to talk; and he kept Purgatory slightly inthe lead--except when the trail grew dim or disappeared altogether. Thenhe would pull the black horse up, look inquiringly at Barbara, and urgePurgatory after her when she took the lead.
But there were many things that Barbara wanted to inquire about; and itwas when they were crossing a big level between some rimming hills, wherethe trail was broad, that she urged her pony beside the black.
"Won't you tell me about father--how he died?" she asked.
He looked sharply at her, saw that she was now quite composed, anddrawing Purgatory to a walk, began to relate to her the incident of thefight at Sentinel Rock. His story was brief--brutally brief, she mighthave thought, had she not been watching his face during the telling,noting the rage that flamed in his eyes when he spoke of Dolver andLaskar and the mysterious "Chief."
It was plain to the girl that he had sympathized with her father; and itwas quite as plain that he now sympathized with her. And thus shementally recorded another point in his favor:
He might be a gunman, a ruthless killer, an outlaw of such evilreputation that men mentioned his name with awe in their voices--but she_knew_, now, that he had a keen sense of justice, and that the murder ofher father had aroused the retributive instinct in him.
Also, she was convinced that compared to Deveny, Rogers, and Lawson, hewas a gentleman. At least, so far he had not looked at her as those menhad looked at her. He had been with her now for several hours, in alonely country where there was no law except his own desires, and he hadbeen as gravely courteous and considerate as it was possible for any manto be.
When he finished his story, having neglected to mention the paper he hadremoved from one of the cylinders of Morgan's pistol--upon which waswritten instructions regarding the location of the gold Morgan hadsecreted--Barbara rode for a long time in silence, her head bowed, hereyes moist.
At last she looked up. Harlan's gaze was straight ahead; he was watchingthe trail, where it vanished over the crest of a high ridge, and he didnot seem to be aware of Barbara's presence.
"And father told you to tell me--wanted you to bring the news to me?"
Harlan nodded.
"Then," she went on "your obligation--if you were under any--seems tohave been completed. You need not have come out of your way."
"I was headed this way."
"To the Rancho Seco?" she questioned, astonished.
Again he nodded. But this time there was a slight smile on his lips.
Her own straightened, and her eyes glowed with a sudden suspicion.
"That's odd," she said; "very odd."
"What is?"
"That you should be on your way to the Rancho Seco--and that you shouldencounter father--that you should happen to reach Sentinel Rock about thetime he was murdered."
He looked straight at her, noting the suspicion in
her eyes. His lowlaugh had a hint of irony in it.
"I've heard of such things," he said.
"What?"
"About guys happenin' to run plumb into a murder when they was innocentof it--an' of them bein' accused of the murder."
It was the mocking light in his eyes that angered her, she believed--andthe knowledge that he had been aware of her suspicion before it hadbecome half formed in her mind.
"I'm not accusing you!" she declared.
"You said it was odd that I'd be headed this way--after I'd told you allthere was to tell."
"It is!" she maintained.
"Well," he conceded; "mebbe it's odd. But I'm still headin' for theRancho Seco. Mebbe I forgot to tell you that your father said I was togo--that he made me promise to go."
He had not mentioned that before; and the girl glanced sharply at him. Hemet the glance with a slow grin which had in it a quality of thatsubtleness she had noticed in him before. A shiver of trepidation ranover her. But she sat rigid in the saddle, determined she would not beafraid of him. For the exchange of talk between them, and his consideratemanner--everything about him--had convinced her that he was much likeother men--men who respect women.
"There is no evidence that father made you promise to go to the RanchoSeco."
"There wasn't no evidence that I made any promise to keep that man Devenyfrom herd-ridin' you," he said shortly, with a grin. "I'm sure goin' tothe Rancho Seco."
"Suppose I should not wish it--what then?"
"I'd keep right on headin' for there--keepin' my promise."
"Do you always keep your promises?" she asked, mockery in her voice.
"When I make 'em. Usually, I don't do any promisin'. But when I do--thatpromise is goin' to be kept. If you ain't likin' my company, ma'am, why,I reckon there's a heap of trail ahead. An' I ain't afraid of gettin'lost."
"Isn't that remarkable!" she jeered.
He looked at her with sober eyes. "If we're figurin' on hittin' theRancho Seco before night we'll have to quit our gassin' an' do sometravelin'," he advised. "Accordin' to the figures we've got about fortymiles to ride, altogether. We've come about fifteen--an'," he looked at asilver watch which he drew from a pocket, "it's pretty near two now."
Without further words--for it seemed useless to argue the point uponwhich he was so obviously determined--Barbara urged Billy on, taking thelead.
For more than an hour she maintained the lead, riding a short distance inadvance, and seemingly paying no attention to Harlan. Yet she noted thathe kept about the same distance from her always--though she neverpermitted him to observe that she watched him, for her backward glanceswere taken out of the corners of her eyes, when she pretended to belooking at the country on one side or the other.
Harlan, however, noted the glances. And his lips curved into a faint grinas he rode. Once when he had dropped behind a little farther than usual,he leaned over and whispered into Purgatory's ear:
"She's sure ignorin' us, ain't she, you black son-of-a-gun! She ain'tlooked back here more'n three times in the last five minutes!"
And yet Harlan's jocular mood did not endure long. During those intervalsin which Barbara kept her gaze straight ahead on the trail, Harlanregarded her with a grave intentness that betrayed the soberness of histhoughts.
In all his days he had seen no woman like her; and when she had cometoward him in Lamo, with Higgins close behind her, he had been soastonished that he had momentarily forgotten Deveny and all the rest ofthem.
Women of the kind he had met had never affected him as Barbara hadaffected him. He had still a mental picture of her as she had come towardhim, with her hair flying in a golden-brown mass over her shoulders; herwide, fear-lighted eyes seeking his with an expression of appeal soeloquent that it had sent a queer, thrilling, protective sensation overhim.
And as she rode ahead of him it was the picture she had made _then_ thathe saw; and the emotions that assailed him were the identical emotionsthat had beset him when for a brief instant, in Lamo, he had held her inhis arms, with her head resting on his shoulder.
That, he felt, had been the real Barbara Morgan. Her manner now--theconstrained and distant pose she had adopted, her suspicions, herindignation--all those were outward manifestations of the reaction thathad seized her. The real Barbara Morgan was she who had run to him forprotection and she would always be to him as she had appeared then--asoft, yielding, trembling girl who, at a glance had trusted him enough torun straight into his arms.
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