"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.
"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope—no, sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.
Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn foolishness?"
"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his eyes that showed him prepared for any move.
So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.
"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business to keep me here."
"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."
The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and stepped back.
"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.
"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."
"What—what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told you that lie."
He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to pay for it.
"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand the gaff for you. Now it's due."
"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize——"
"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take it."
Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his opponent by twenty pounds—a husky, well-built fellow; but he was entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from the marrow out.
Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing blows.
Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.
"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.
"Sure of that?"
"You've pretty near killed me."
Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to that apology now, my friend."
With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I didn't mean—I hadn't ought to have said——"
Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."
For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story would be kept secret.
"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. 'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.
"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.
"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more than talk.
"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about it, and hear the particulars."
"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief.
"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. "You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my little spiel."
"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can see. I'd rather they didn't know."
"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where Buck is right now."
Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not persuaded.
"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?"
Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one.
"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly.
"No—I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie.
The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll close-herd both stories, then."
"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied."
But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole story of the thrashing would be bound to come out.
"I can't go down looking like this," he growled.
"Do you have to go down?"
"Have to get my horse, don't I?"
"I'll bring it to you."
"And say nothing about—what has happened?"
"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam."
"All right—I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms.
Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had to come down and saddle the latter's mount.
He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat stamp.
This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung again to the saddle, and continued on his way.
The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not
hear him coming as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand something that clicked.
Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like tempered steel.
"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty."
Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?"
"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this one, to save you trouble."
He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie.
For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve to pit himself against such a man as this.
"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly.
"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is between us two. It won't go any further."
Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the hill and disappeared.
Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of one who lives much alone.
"There's a nice young man—yellow clear through. Queer thing she could ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against the acid test, then."
His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks.
"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is headed for the pen mighty fast."
He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV
A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him pass the time.
This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed prints on the walls—cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were circumscribed by the purse limitation.
Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr Song."
I know by the stir of the branches,
The way she went;
And at times I can see where a stem
Of the grass is bent.
She's the secret and light of my life,
She allures to elude;
But I follow the spell of her beauty,
Whatever the mood.
"Knows what he's talking about—some poet, that fellow," Buck cried aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost in his discovery.
It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza.
"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No risk at all, looks to me."
With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being seen.
The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, and went back to reading.
The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again puffing in pleasant serenity.
Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar.
Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he must have been up in a balloon.
The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat had reached the powder.
By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices.
"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin.
The fat was surely in the fire now.
Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply.
Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher known as Cuffs. All of them were armed.
"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked.
"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil.
"That's right. I'm here, sure enough."
"How long you been here?"
"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done."
"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously.
But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son.
"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil."
Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission in a lady's room," he admitted humorously.
A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had been running. It was Keller.
That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for him last night.
"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly.
They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.
"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the mantel.
He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had already condemned him to death
. The quiet repression they imposed on themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil were unusually tall men—as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.
"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay.
"Made up your mind, have you?"
"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus Menendez."
"A bad break, that—and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your trap."
"So much the worse for you."
"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to punish the man that shot Menendez."
"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for the killing of poor Jesus."
"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course——"
"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I blame the guns they fired. You did that killing."
"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles away."
"That makes no difference."
"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not give any specific orders in this case."
"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs.
"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged.
"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars.
"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked.
"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath.
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