CHAPTER XXIX
WORLD'S END
Barbara Morgan had fought Deveny until she became exhausted. Thereaftershe lay quiet, breathing fast, yielding to the nameless terror that heldher in its icy clutch.
The appearance of Deveny so soon after the end of the heartbreaking ridedown the trail had brought into her heart a sense of the futility ofresistance--and yet she had resisted, involuntarily, instinctively. Yetresistance had merely served to increase the exhaustion that had comeupon her.
She had not known--until she lay passive in Deveny's arms--how taut hernerves had been, nor how the physical ordeal had drained her strength.
She felt the strain, now, but consideration for her body was overwhelmedby what she saw in Deveny's eyes as she lay watching him.
There were a dozen men with Deveny--she had seen them, counted them whenthey had been racing down the shelving trail on the other side of thevalley. And she knew they were following Deveny, for she could hear thethudding of hoofs behind.
Deveny's big arms were around her; she could feel the rippling of hismuscles as he swayed from side to side, balancing himself in the saddle.He was not using the reins; he was giving his attention to her, lettingthe horse follow his own inclinations.
Yet she noted that the animal held to the trail, that he traveledsteadily, requiring no word from his rider.
Once, after they had ridden some distance up the valley, Barbara heard aman behind them call Deveny's attention to some horsemen who were ridingthe shelving trail that Deveny and his men had taken on their way to thelevel; and she heard Deveny laugh.
"Some of the Star gang, I reckon. Mebbe Haydon, goin' to the Rancho Seco,to see his girl." He grinned down into Barbara's face, his own alightwith a triumph that made a shiver run over her.
Later--only a few minutes, it seemed--she heard a man call to Devenyagain, telling him that a lone rider was "fannin' it" up the valley.
"Looks like that guy, Linton," said the man.
"Two of you drop back and lay for him!" ordered Deveny. "Make it sure!"he added, after a short pause.
Barbara yielded to a quick horror. She fought with Deveny, trying in vainto free her arms--which he held tightly to her sides with his own. Shegave it up at last, and lay, looking up into his face, her eyes blazingwith impotent rage and repugnance.
"You mean to kill him?" she charged.
"Sure," he laughed; "there's no one interfering with what's going onnow."
Overcome with nausea over the conviction that Deveny's order meant deathto Red Linton, Barbara lay slack in Deveny's arms for a long time. Apremonitory silence had settled over the valley; she heard the dull thudof hoofs behind her, regular and swift, the creaking of the saddleleather as the animal under her loped forward.
There was no other sound. For the men behind her were strangely silent,and even Deveny seemed to be listening.
After what seemed to be a long interval, she heard a shot, and thenalmost instantly, another. She shuddered, closing her eyes, for she knewthey had killed Linton. And she had blamed Linton for guarding herfrom--from the very thing that had happened to her. And Linton had givenhis life for her!
How long she had her eyes closed she did not know. The time could nothave been more than a few minutes though, for she heard a voice behindher saying to Deveny:
"They got him."
Then she looked up, to see Deveny grinning at her.
"I reckon that's all," he said. "We're headin' for the Cache--myhang-out. If you'd have been good over in Lamo, the day that damnedHarlan came, this wouldn't have happened. I'd sent for a parson, an' Iintended to give you a square deal. But now it's different. Then I wasscared of running foul of Haydon--I didn't want to make trouble. But I'mrunning my own game now--Haydon and me have agreed to call it quits. Menot liking the idea of Haydon adopting Harlan."
She stared up at him, her eyes widening.
"You and Haydon were--what do you mean?" she asked, her heart seeming tobe a dead weight in her breast, heavy with suspicion over the dreadsignificance in his voice and words. She watched him, breathlessly.
"I'm meaning that Haydon and me were running things in the valley--thatwe were partners, splitting equal. But I'm playing a lone hand now."
He seemed to enjoy her astonishment--the light in her eyes which showedthat comprehension, freighted with hopelessness, was stealing over her.
He grinned hugely as he watched her face.
"Haydon is the guy we called 'Chief,'" he said, enjoying her furtheramazement and noting the sudden paleness that swept over her face. "He'sthe guy who killed your father at Sentinel Rock. He was after you,meaning to make a fool of you. Hurts--does it?" he jeered, when he sawher eyes glow with a rage that he could understand. "I've heard of thatchain deal--Haydon was telling me. When he shot your father he lost a bitof chain. Harlan found it and gave it back to him, with you looking on. Ireckon that's why him and Harlan hit it off together so well--Harlanknowing he killed your father and not telling you about it."
The long shudder that shook the girl betrayed something of the terribleemotion under which she was laboring; and when she finally opened hereyes to gaze again into Deveny's, they were filled with a hauntinghopelessness--a complete surrender to the sinister circumstances whichseemed to have surrounded her from the beginning.
"Harlan," she said weakly, as though upon him she had pinned her lasthope; "Harlan has joined you after all--he is against me--too?"
"Him and Haydon are after the Rancho Seco. Harlan's been playing withHaydon right along."
Barbara said nothing more. She was incapable of coherent thought or ofdefinite action--or even of knowledge of her surroundings.
For it seemed to her that Deveny had spoken truthfully. She had seen theincident of the broken chain; she had seen Harlan's hypocritical grinupon that occasion--how he had seemed to be eager to ingratiate himselfwith Haydon.
All were against her--everybody. Everybody, it seemed, but Red Linton.And they had killed Linton.
She seemed to be drifting off into a place which was peopled with demonsthat schemed and planned for her honor and her life; and not one of themwho planned and schemed against her gave the slightest indication ofmercy or manliness. The world became chaotic with swirling objects--thena blank, aching void into which she drifted, feeling nothing, seeingnothing.
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