by Grey, Zane
Nevada swiftly ran his glance over the other men, standing near and in the background. Ben Ide was not present!
Then Nevada drew back behind the woodpile, loosened his gun in its sheath, and stood there an instant while the waiting forces of brain and muscle vibrated into a tremendous unity.
"Come an' get it," sang out the cheery voice of the cook inside.
"Whoopee! Whoaboy," shouted the cowboys, scrambling up.
At this instant Nevada bounded out swiftly and ran to a halt.
"HOLD ON!" he yelled, with all the power of his lungs. His piercing voice made statues of all, even the cowboys stiffening in half-erect postures.
In the instant of silence that ensued Dillon was the only man to move and he wheeled swift as a flash, so swiftly that the receding trace of mirth had not yet left his handsome face.
"Howdy, Dillon!" drawled Nevada, slow and cool.
Macklin shuffled erect in great alarm.
"That's Jim Lacy," he shouted, hoarsely.
"Shore is. Careful now, you outsiders!" warned Nevada, yet with eye only for Dillon.
Every man in line with Dillon plunged off the porch or darted into the cabin. The cowboys sank back to the ground, sagging against the log wall.
Dillon stood on the porch, facing Nevada, scarcely thirty feet distant. His reaction from careless mirth to recognition of peril was as swift as his sight. But there followed the instant when his faculties had to grasp what that peril was and how he should meet it.
Nevada had gambled on this instant. It was his advantage. He did not underrate Dillon. He read his mind in those dilating eyes.
"Wal, you know me," cut out Nevada, icily. "An' I know you--Dillon--
CAMPBELL!--ED RICHARDSON!"
That was the paralyzing challenge. The rustler turned a ghastly white. The frontier's bloody creed, by which he had lived, called him to his death. His green eyes set balefully. He knew. He showed his training. He had no more fear of death than of the swallows flitting under the eaves above. But he had a magnificent and desperate courage to take his enemy with him.
Richardson never uttered a word. Almost imperceptibly his body lowered as if under instinct to crouch. His stiff bent right arm began to quiver.
Nevada saw the thought in Richardson's eyes--the birth of the message to nerve and muscle. When his hand flashed down Nevada was drawing.
Crash! Nevada's shot did not beat Richardson's draw, but it broke his aim. Boom! The rustler's gun went off half leveled. He lurched with terrible violence and his gun boomed again. The bullet scattered the gravel at Nevada's feet and spanged away into the air.
A wide red spot appeared as if by magic on the middle of Richardson's white shirt. How terrible to see him strain to raise his gun-arm!
At Nevada's second shot one of Richardson's awful eyes went blank.
His gun clattered to the floor. He swayed. His arm hooked round the porch post. Then it sank limp, letting him fall with sodden thud.
Nevada was the first to withdraw his gaze from that twitching body.
He flipped his gun into the air and caught it by the barrel.
"Heah, sir," he said to the sheriff with the star on his vest, and extended the gun butt foremost. "I reckon that'll be aboot all for Jim Lacy."
The strain on the watchers relaxed. A murmur of wonder ran through them, growing louder. The sheriff came to a power of movement and speech.
"What? Lacy, are you handin'--over your gun?" he queried, hoarsely.
"Wal, I'm not pointin' the right end of it at you," replied Nevada, and tossed the gun at the sheriff's feet.
"What--the hell?" gasped a weather-beaten old rider, Raidy, staring hard at Nevada.
Here Macklin came rushing up, to get between Nevada and the other sheriff.
"Jim Lacy, you're my prisoner," yelled Macklin, beside himself with the strange opportunity presented and a terror of the enormity of his risk. He drew his gun. "Hands up."
"Shoot an' be damned, you four-flush officer of the law," retorted Nevada, wearily, and turning his back to Macklin he strode to a seat on the porch steps.
"Run for the boss," shouted Raidy to the cowboys. "Tell him there's hell come off. Fetch him an' Judge Franklidge."
"Hyar comes Tom Day with his outfit," yelled a cowboy, excitedly, pointing to the horsemen entering the square. "The whole range's hyar. Haw! Haw!"
Nevada experienced a weariness of soul and body. It was over. He did not care what happened.
"Say, give me a smoke--one of you punchers," he said, removing his sombrero to wipe his clammy brow.
Chapter twenty-one.
Marvie Blaine came swinging down the trail at a gallop, with Rose Hatt riding close behind.
Eager excitement lent Hettie the strength to mount her horse.
Nevada's strange eyes and words! What might not Marvie and Rose have to tell her?
"Hey there, Hettie!" shouted Marvie, when still some rods distant.
"Look who's comin' behind."
Hettie complied, with emotions changing, rising again in a flood, new, bewildering, looming darkly to threaten her with panic.
Marvie rode right upon her before halting.
"Say, you look like the devil!" he ejaculated, with anxious concern.
"Marv, that's the way I feel," replied Hettie.
Rose joined them, to crowd her pony close, eager yet shy, with eyes alight and lips parted. "Oh, Miss Hettie!" she cried, rapturously.
"Marvie's brought me to you. I--I'll never go back--to the brakes."
"My dear, you're welcome to my home," returned Hettie, warmly, leaning to kiss the flushed face.
"Hettie, you've seen a ghost--the same ghost I seen," declared Marvie, shrewdly.
"Oh, Marvie lad--a ghost indeed!" moaned Hettie. "Nevada! . . .
He just left me--to--to kill Dillon!"
"No news to me," shouted Marvie, fiercely. "I've got to see that. . . . Fetch Rose. But go round. Keep away from the corrals."
The last he delivered over his shoulder as he urged his horse into the trail and beat him into a run. In a moment he passed out of sight among the pines. The swift patter of hoofs died away.
"Come, Rose--ride," suddenly cried Hettie, with a start, striking her horse.
The spirited animal, unused to that, broke into a gallop, and then a run. Hettie looked back. The girl was close behind, her hair flying in the wind, her face flashing. Her pony was fast and she could ride. Hettie turned her attention to the trail and the low branches of pines and the obstructing brush. Soon she was flying at a tremendous gait through the forest. The speed, the violence added to her agitation.
Where the trail emerged from the pines, to drop down on the sage and cedar slope adjacent to the ranch land, Hettie turned her horse and kept to the top of the slope. Soon she passed Nevada's big black horse grazing on the sage. Her heart took a great bursting leap. "An' shore sunset for me!" Nevada's words of resignation and sadness rang in her ears like bells of doom.
Suddenly she imagined she heard a shot. She turned her ear to the left. Another! A gun-shot--then two sharp cracks, clear on the breeze. She reeled in her saddle. Almost she put her horse at the ranch fence. But she kept on in wild flight, forgetting Rose, clutching with left hand at her breast, where uncertainty augmented to supreme agony.
Her fast horse, keen at the freedom afforded him, swept on as in a race, on by the corrals and gardens, up over the low bench, and through the woods to her cabin, where her mother stood waving frantically from the porch. Hettie rode on, over the swaying bridge, into the shady green glade before Ben's house.
Here she pulled her iron-jawed horse to a snorting halt. She saw men running. She heard Rose's pony come clattering over the bridge. Then Marvie's horse appeared over the rise of ground toward the corral. What breakneck speed! How he thundered up the drive!
One sight of Marvie's flashing face answered Hettie. She could have screamed in her frenzy. Marvie reached her at the moment Rose came up. His horse reared and pounde
d. Marvie jerked him down with powerful arm, and closed with Hettie.
"Nevada's down there--handcuffed!" he whispered, pantingly.
"Dillon's dead! . . . Oh, there'll be--hell now! . . . But not a word from--you an' Rose!"
The boy's heated face, the horses, Rose so white and rapt, the running riders, the houses and the pines--all blurred in Hettie's sight. She had to fight fiercely to recover. She felt the girl's strong hand on her, steadying her in the saddle. The deadly faintness passed. Her eyes cleared and her breast lifted to give rein to a tumult there.
Ben and Judge Franklidge were striding out to meet the running cowboys.
"Judge, I told you I heard shots," Ben was saying. "Somethin's happened!"
"Seems like. But don't let it upset you," replied the judge.
"There's Marvie. . . . Has he gone loco?" exclaimed Ben, in amaze, as the boy, riding wildly, scattered the men coming up the slope.
"By thunder! Ben," replied Franklidge, suddenly espying Hettie and Rose, as they rode in upon the lawn.
At that juncture the first cowboys reached Ben to blurt out:
"Boss, Jim Lacy's here! He just killed Dillon."
"Wha--at?" shouted Ben, incredulously.
As the cowboy repeated his news Raidy arrived at the head of three more of Ben's hands, and all began to jabber pantingly.
"One at a time," ordered Ben, harshly. "What the hell's wrong?
Raidy!"
The old foreman drew himself up steadily, though with heaving breast.
"Boss, I have to report--Dillon's been killed--Jim Lacy!"
Ben Ide leaped straight up in sudden ungovernable fury. His face turned dusk red. He clenched his fists high above his head.
"On my own place?" he thundered.
"Yes, sir. Right on the cook-house porch."
"Dillon dead?"
"He is indeed, sir," replied Raidy. "Lacy shot him through the middle--then put out his right eye."
"Murder!" gasped Ben.
"Not much! . . . It was an even break. Lacy dropped out of the clouds, seems like. Dillon was game, sir, an' quick--but not quick enough."
"Killed! My best man," rasped out Ben, stridently. "Where's this Jim Lacy?"
"He's sittin' on the cook-house porch," replied Raidy.
"Handcuffed, sir. . . . The sheriffs put him in irons."
Ben cracked a hard fist into his palm. "They got him, then. . . .
Judge Franklidge, I knew we'd land that gunman-rustler."
"Ide, it's a little embarrassing to know what to do with this--this Jim Lacy--now we've got him," replied the judge, dryly.
"Damn him! I'll show you."
"An', boss," interrupted Raidy, "Tom Day has rid in with his outfit. They wanted to lynch Lacy. But Tom roared at them like a mad bull. Reckon you'd better hurry down."
Ina came running from the house. "Ben, what--in the--world's happened?" she asked, in alarm.
"Ina, it's all over, so don't get scared," returned Ben. "Dillon has been shot by that bloody devil, Jim Lacy. Why, the man must be insane! Comin' here to carry out his queer feud! Right at my back door!"
"Dillon? Is--is he dead?" asked Ina, fearfully.
"Yes, ma'am," interposed Raidy, touching his sombrero.
"Oh, how dreadful!" Then Ina caught sight of Hettie and Rose. She ran to them. "Hettie, isn't it awful? That Dillon! I wonder. . . .
You look sort of wild, Hettie. Who's this girl with you?"
"Rose Hatt. Marvie's friend," replied Hettie, bending down. "Oh, Ina, I've--"
Ben, striding away with his men, turned to call out, "Ina, stay back, an' keep those girls with you!"
"But why can't I come, too?" burst out Ina.
"No place for women," he returned, curtly. "There's one dead man now an' soon there'll be another."
Ina halted with a revulsion of feeling too strong for curiosity.
"Hettie, we mustn't go," she said.
"Listen, old girl. Chucks for Ben Ide. There's not enough men in Arizona to keep me away," declared Hettie, wildly. Then she bent down over Ina to whisper. "Jim Lacy is Nevada!"
Ina put a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Then she gasped, "No!"
"Yes! I've known it for long. And I MET him today. . . .
O God! . . . But I--I can't talk now. Come."
Hettie, with Rose on her left, rode at the heels of the striding men. Ina ran beside Hettie, clinging to the stirrup, looking up now and then with dark bright eyes.
They traversed the short lane to enter the wide square, on the other side of which stood the quarters of the ranch hands. There were ten or more saddle horses standing bridles down. Hettie's startled sight included a dark group of men massed in front of the cook-house. There! Nevada must be there--soon to be confronted by Ben. How terrible for Ben--for both of them! Hettie's state became one of palpitating suspense, of nerve-racking torture. Yet an overwhelming, incomprehensible curiosity consumed her.
They reached the crowd of cowboys and men strange to Hettie, some of whom faced around.
"Open up here," shouted Ben, in a loud hard voice. "Spread out. . . . Let me see this man."
The crowd split in a hurry, leaving a wide V-shaped space, at the apex of which sat the prisoner on the edge of the porch. The dead man lay on the ground, covered with a blanket.
Hettie recognized Nevada, though his head was bowed and his sombrero hid his face. His hands, in irons, hung over his knees.
What a strange, pathetic figure! Hettie's sore heart failed her.
What mystery was here? The moment seemed charged with indefinable and profound portent.
Macklin, the Winthrop sheriff, beaming and bristling with his importance, advanced a stride, with pompous gesture.
"Wal, Mr. Ide, here's your man. I've got him in irons," he boomed.
Ben advanced, his gaze passing from the dead man on the ground to the slumping prisoner.
"Jim Lacy," he called, sternly.
There was no movement from Nevada, except that he seemed to contract. Nobody else stirred. The air was fraught with tragic suggestion, with inscrutable meaning that yet transfixed the onlookers.
"Lacy, I'm goin' to hang you!" rang out Ben Ide.
Still no response from this notorious gunman, whose daring, whose cold nerve, had long been a subject for campfire gossip.
"Stand up. Let me look at you," ordered Ben, suddenly.
With a violent wrench the prisoner jerked out of his dejected posture, to slip off the porch and stand erect. He ducked his head, removing the sombrero, which fell to the ground. Composed and pale then he faced his judge.
Ben Ide seemed struck by lightning.
"My God! . . . Who--is this--man?" he faltered, almost inaudibly.
There was no answer. The crowd of onlookers gazed spellbound.
"WHO ARE YOU?"
"Wal, Ben, I'm shore sorry we met this heah way," came the reply, in the old slow cool accents. "But I reckon it had to be."
"NEVADA!"
With the hoarse wondering cry, Ben leaped forward to clasp his old friend in a close embrace and hold him so a long moment.
Hettie saw Ben's face in convulsion, his eyes shut tight, his expression one to bewilder the staring bystanders. To her it was beautiful and somehow soul-satisfying. Her eyes were dim, her heart pounding.
"My old pard! Found at last! . . . Thank God!--I feared you were dead. . . . All these long years! But I hoped an' prayed. . . .
An' here you are. It's too good to be true. I reckon it's a dream. Say somethin' to me--you old wild-horse-huntin' pard.
Nevada!"
Ben held him back, hands on his shoulders, oblivious to all but that lean stone-gray face.
"Yes, Ben . . . Nevada to you--but to all the world--only Jim Lacy," replied Nevada, sadly.
"WHAT?" cried Ben, with a violent start. Then his nervous quick hands ran down to Nevada's irons. "God Almighty! . . . You Jim Lacy?"
"Yes, to my shame--pard."
Ben's transition to reali
ty was swift and passionate. Suddenly white, with blazing eyes, he tore at Nevada's handcuffs. "I don't care a damn who you were. You're Nevada to me--my friend--my pard.
An' so you'll be forever."
"Wal, Ben--it's shore good to heah you," replied Nevada, his voice trailing off.
"Macklin, unlock these irons," ordered Ben.
"What? . . . But, Mr. Ide--he's my prisoner!" protested the sheriff, aghast. "He's wanted for rustlin'. He killed your foreman. The law--"
"To hell with your law!" interrupted Ben, fiercely. "Unlock his irons!"
"You hired us to ketch this man!"
"Quick. Before I throw my gun on you!"
His hand went to his hip. The crowd stirred with restless feet and whispered exclamation. Tom Day stepped out to get between Macklin and Ben.
"Easy now, Ben. Let old Tom have a word," he said, in his big voice, now full and resonant. "We've had enough gun-play for one day. . . . Macklin, give me the keys to these irons."
The sheriff, red of face, flustered and intimidated, complied with poor grace. Day unlocked the irons, removed them, and somewhat with contempt cast them at Macklin's feet.
Nevada rubbed his wrists and then looked up to smile at Day.
"Put her thar, Texas Jack," boomed the old rancher, with a wonderful smile wreathing his rugged face. "We're shore from the old Lone Star State. Let me be the first to shake the good right hand thet did for Dillon."
"Wal, Tom, shore you needn't rub it in," drawled Nevada, as he yielded to the vigorous onslaught of the older man.
"Come heah, Franklidge," called Day, beckoning to the judge. "I reckon it's aboot time."
Ben Ide stood motionless, his jaw dropping, his eyes expressive of an incredulous wonder that he could not voice. His feeling was surely shared by others there. As for Hettie, she seemed to feel her blood and brain whirl madly. Texas Jack! That warm, splendid smile of the old rancher! Judge Franklidge moving forward with dignified step and grave, kindly face!
But the other black-garbed sheriff intercepted him.
"Mr. Ide, these are sure most extraordinary proceedings," he said, authoritatively.
"Hell, yes!" burst out Ben. "But it's an extraordinary case."
"The law must take its course. Even if this Jim Lacy was an old pard of yours, he's now a criminal. Reckon his gun-play was always on the level. But he's a cattle an' hoss thief. We set out to hang the leader of this Pine Tree rustler outfit. Sure Lacy is him. His killin' of Dillon proves that. If this is no hangin' case, it sure is one for jail."
