"Friends?" Taggart stepped back a pace and looked at Calumet incredulously, his eyes searching for signs of insincerity. He saw no such signs, for if Calumet had emotion at this minute it was too deep to be uncovered with a glance. But he knew from Taggart's perturbation that the latter knew him to be the man he had shot at that day in the valley.
Obviously, he had not then had any suspicion as to his identity—his surprise showed that he had not. And his half-fearful, puzzled looks at Calumet indicated to the latter that he was wondering whether Calumet recognized him as the man who had done the shooting.
Calumet's smile was cordial, inviting, even slightly ingratiating, and watching him closely Taggart was convinced that he was not recognized. Also he was certain that Calumet could not have learned anything of the trouble between their parents. Yet Betty knew, and if Betty hadn't told him there must be something between them—dislike or greed on Betty's part—and a smile appeared on his face as he remembered that he had heard his father say that Calumet had been vicious and unmanageable in his youth. He must be at odds with Betty.
And Betty—well, a shyster lawyer in Las Vegas had told Taggart something about a will which old Marston had made, in which Betty had been named as beneficiary of the property in case Calumet failed to agree to certain specifications, and Taggart was ready to believe that Betty would not hesitate to bring about an open clash with Calumet in order to gain control of the ranch. This thought filled Taggart with a savage exultation. He and his father had made very little progress in their past attacks on the Lazy Y, and if it were possible to set Calumet against Betty there might come an opportunity to drive a wedge which would make an opening—the opening they had long sought for. At all events he would have considered himself a fool if he failed to take advantage of this opportunity to ingratiate himself into the good nature of this man.
"Well, that's right, I reckon," he said. "There ain't no reason that I know of why we shouldn't be friends. I'm right glad to see you." He stuck out his right hand, but it appeared that Calumet did not notice it, for he laughed as he replaced the pistol in its holster.
"Same here," he said. "If you're passin' the Lazy Y any time, drop in an' visit. I'm fixin' her up a few—enough so's I can live in the old shack."
Taggart had noted with a lowering frown Calumet's omission of the proffered handshake, but the cordial good nature of the smile on the latter's face was unmistakable, and he grinned in reply.
"I'll sure do that," he said.
"I'll be right glad to have you," said Calumet. "Come tomorrow—in the afternoon—any time."
"You reckonin' on bein' the boss now?" questioned Taggart.
Some emotion flickered Calumet's eyelashes. "You've said somethin'," he returned; "nobody's runnin' me." He turned and walked to Dade, who had been watching him with wrath and astonishment.
"Drinkin'?" suggested Taggart. "Have a drink, old man," he said, with celluloid good fellowship.
Calumet turned with a grin. "Me an' my friend has got to the end of our capacity," he said. "He's workin' for me an I ain't settin' him a bad example. The next time, if you're in the humor, I'll be glad to drink all you can buy." He waved a hand behind him, with the other he was pushing Dade before him toward the door. "So-long," he said, as he and Dade went out.
Taggart laughed as he turned to his companions, who had said nothing during the conversation.
"Friends!" he said; "he's green an' due for a shock!"
Either Taggart or the proprietor had made a mistake in their estimate of Calumet. For at the instant Taggart had sneered at Calumet to his friends, the bartender, who had come in while Taggart and Calumet had been talking, leaned over to listen to the proprietor.
"In Taggart's place," said the proprietor, "I'd be mighty careful of that man. Friend, eh? Well, mebbe. But you noticed that he didn't offer to shake hands with Taggart. An' he wouldn't drink. Reached his capacity! He had four in here. Sober as a judge! Did you notice his eyes? They fair made me shiver when he looked at me when I was talkin' about his old man. I'm goin' to be damn careful about my palaver after this. Friend! Well, if I wasn't his friend I'd be damn careful not to rile him!"
Outside Dade halted, white hot with rage.
"I reckon I ain't got no job with you, you white-livered—"
The muzzle of Calumet's forty-five, magically produced, it seemed, so quickly did it show in his hand, was making an icy ring against Dade's throat, and the words, the epithet for which he had hesitated, remained unspoken. Metallic, venomous and filled with a threat of death came Calumet's voice.
"You sufferin' fool!" he said, the words writhing through his lips, his eyes blazing. "It's my game, do you hear? An' if you gas another word about it I'll tear you apart!"
"He was blackguardin' Betty," objected Dade, his face ashen, but his spirit still undaunted. "He was blackguardin' her an' you made friends with him. I'd have salivated him if I'd thought you wasn't goin' to. I'm goin' back there now an'—"
Calumet stepped back a pace and cocked his six-shooter. "I reckon I can't make you understand that it's my game," he said coldly. "Walk backwards when you go in," he directed; "I don't want to plug you in the back."
Dade started and looked intently at Calumet. "You mean that it ain't ended between you an' him?" he demanded.
"Some people would have tumbled to that long ago," jeered Calumet. "But kids—kids take longer to sabe a thing. I'm glad you're over it," he added. He sheathed his pistol. "I reckon we'll be goin'," he said. "Betty'll begin to believe I'm lost."
Dade followed him to the wagon, meekly enough now that he had received unmistakable proof that Taggart was Calumet's "game," and shortly afterward the wagon pulled out of Lazette and struck the trail toward the Lazy Y.
CHAPTER XI
PROGRESS
Calumet had some thoughts on the subject but they were all inchoate and unsatisfying. He got only one conclusion out of them—that for some mysterious reason he had surrendered to Betty and was going to work to repair the ranchhouse.
On the morning following his visit to Lazette he sat on a piece of heavy timber which he and Dade had lifted a few minutes before to some saw-horses preparatory to framing. Armed with a scratch awl and a square Dade was at the other end of the timber, his hat shoved back from his forehead while he ran his fingers through his hair as though pondering some weighty problem. Watching him, Calumet suffered a recurrence of that vague disquiet which had moved him the night before when he had listened to the cordial greeting which Betty had given the young man. Old friendship had been between the two and somehow it had disturbed Calumet. He did not know why. He didn't like Betty, but at the same time every smile that she had given Dade the night before had caused some strange emotion to grip him. And he liked Dade, too. He couldn't understand that, either.
He had never been friendly with any man. But something about Dade appealed to him; he felt tolerant toward him, was mildly interested in him. He thought it was because Dade was boyish and impulsive. Whatever it was, he knew of its existence. It was not a deep feeling; it was like the emotion that moves a large animal to permit a smaller one to remain near it—a grudging tolerance which may develop into sincere friendship or at a flash turn into a furious hatred. And so Dade's security depended entirely upon how he conducted himself. If he kept out of Calumet's way, all well and good. But if he interfered with him, if, for instance, he became too friendly with Betty, there would come an end to Calumet's tolerance.
And so there was a glint of speculative distrust in Calumet's eyes as he sat and watched Dade ponder. Calumet was in no good humor. He felt like baiting Dade.
"What you clawin' your head that way for?" he suddenly demanded as Dade continued to puzzle over his problem.
Dade grinned. "I'm goin' to halve these sills together. But I'm wantin' to make sure that the halves will be made reverse, so's they'll fit. An' I don't seem to be able to fix it clear in my mind."
"You was braggin' some on bein' a carpenter."
&
nbsp; "I reckon I wasn't doin' no braggin'," denied Dade, reddening a little.
Calumet fixed a hostile eye on him. "Braggin' goes," he said shortly. "If you'd said you was a barber, now, no one would expect you to fit any sills together. But when you say you've done carpenter work that makes it different. You ought to sabe sills."
Dade laid his square and scratch awl down on the piece of timber and deliberately seated himself on the saw-horse beside it. He looked defiantly at Calumet. A change had come over him from the day before—the slight deference in his manner had become succeeded by something unyielding and hard.
"Let's get on an understandin'," he said. "You can't go to pickin' on me." And he looked fairly into Calumet's eyes over the length of the timber.
"I'm gassin' to suit myself," said Calumet; "if that don't size up right to you you can pull your freight."
"You're a false alarm," said Dade bluntly; "you drive me plumb weary."
Before his voice had died away Calumet's hand had flashed to his pistol butt. Why he did not draw the weapon was a mystery known only to himself. It might have been because Dade had not moved. Calumet's lips had tensed over his teeth in a savage snarl; they still held the snarl when he spoke.
"You'll swallow that," he said. "Do you sabe my idea?"
"Nary swallow," declared Dade. "False alarm goes. I've got you sized up right."
Calumet's six-shooter came out. His eyes, blazing with a wanton fire, met Dade's and held them. The youngster's lips whitened, but his eyes did not waver. Death twitched at Calumet's finger. There was a long silence. And then Dade spoke.
"Usin' it?" he said.
Into Calumet's blazing eyes came a slow glint of doubt, of reluctant admiration. His lashes flickered, the blaze died down, he squinted, a cold, amused smile succeeded the snarl. He laughed shortly, looked at the pistol, and then slowly jammed it back into the holster.
"You're too good to lose," he said. "I'm savin' you for another time."
"Thanks," said Dade dryly, though the ashen face of him showed how well he realized his narrow escape. "I reckon we understand each other now. I can see by the way you yanked out your gun just now and by the way you got the drop on Taggart yesterday, that you're some on the shoot. But I ain't none scared of you. An' now I'm tellin' you why I said you're a false alarm. I was talkin' to Betty last night. She's read up a bit, an' I'm parrotin' what she said about you because it's what I think, too. Your cosmos is all ego. That's what Betty said. Brought down to cases, what that means is that you've got a bad case of swelled head. So far as you're concerned there's only one person in the world. That's you. Nobody else counts. You've been thinkin' about yourself so much that you can't find time to think about anybody else. There's other people in the world as good as you—better. Betty's one of them. She's a good girl an' you an' me'll hitch all right as long as you don't go to bullyin' her. I reckon that's all."
"Meanin' that you'll let me hang around as long as I'm good," sneered Calumet in a dangerously soft voice. He was trying to work himself into a rage, but the effort was futile. Something in Dade's quiet, matter-of-fact voice had a dulling, cooling effect on him. Besides, he knew that an attack on Dade would be resented by Betty, and he felt a strange reluctance toward further antagonizing her. "You Texas folks are sure clever at workin' your jaws," he sneered, when Dade did not answer. "But I reckon that lets you out. When I'm lookin' for advice from women an' kids mebbe I'll call on you an' Betty, but if I don't you'll understand that I'm followin' my own trail. You've got away with one call because—well, because I was fool enough to let you. Mebbe another time I won't feel so foolish."
There were few words spoken between them during the following hours of the morning, though several times Dade caught Calumet watching him with a puzzled, amused smile in which there was a sort of slumbering ferocity. By the middle of the morning the front of the ranchhouse had been raised with the assistance of jacks, the old rotted sills taken out and new ones substituted. About an hour before noon, while Calumet, in woolen shirt and overalls, his face dirty, his hair tousled, and his temper none too good, was wedging the sill tight against the studding above it, he became aware of Betty standing near him. She nodded toward the sill.
"That makes an improvement already," she said.
"Ye-es?" he said, with an irritating drawl.
There was a silence; she stood, regarding his back, a faint smile on her face.
"I want to compliment you on your judgment of horses," she persisted, in an attempt to make him talk; "the ones you bought are fine."
Calumet drove a wedge home viciously. But he did not answer.
"I've been checking up your other purchases," she went on; "and I find that you followed the list I gave you faithfully."
He turned and looked up. "Look here," he said; "I got what you wanted, didn't I? There's no use of gettin' mush headed about it. I'd have blowed the money just as quick, if I'd wanted to."
"But you didn't."
"Because you didn't want me to, I reckon?" he sneered.
"No. Because you wanted to be fair."
He had not known what sort of an answer he had expected from her, but the one he got embarrassed him. He felt a reluctant pleasure over the knowledge that she had faith in him, but mingling with this was a rage against himself over his surrender. When she turned from him and walked over to Dade, speaking to him in a low voice, he could not have told which affected him most, his rage against himself or his disappointment over her abrupt leave-taking. She irritated him, but somehow he got a certain pleasure out of that irritation—which was a wholly unsatisfying and mystifying paradox. He covertly watched Dade during her talk with him and discovered that he did not like the way the young man looked at her; he was entirely too familiar even if he was a friend of the family. He saw, too, that Betty seemed to be an entirely different person when talking to Dade. For one thing she seemed natural, which she didn't seem when talking to him. Until he saw her talking with Dade he had been able to see nothing in her manner but restraint and stiff formality, but figuratively, when in Dade's presence she seemed to melt—she was gracious, smiling, cordial.
Betty's attitude toward him during the noon meal puzzled him much. Some subtle change had come over her. Several times he surprised her looking at him, and at these times he was certain there was approval in her glances, though perhaps the approval was mingled with something else—speculation, he thought.
But whatever it was, he had not seen it before. Had he known that Dade had told her about the incident of the Red Dog Saloon he would have understood, for she was wondering—as Dade had wondered—why he had pretended to make friends with Taggart, why he had asked the Arrow man to visit the Lazy Y that afternoon.
After dinner Calumet went out again to his work, apparently carefree and unconcerned, if we are to omit those thoughts in which Dade and Betty figured, Dade watched him with much curiosity, for the incident of the day before was still vivid in his mind, and if there had been. mystery in Calumet's action in inviting Taggart to the Lazy Y there had been no mystery in the words he had spoken outside the Red Dog Saloon immediately afterward: "It's my game, do you hear?"
But along toward the middle of the afternoon Dade became so interested that he forgot all about Taggart, and was only reminded of him when looking up momentarily he saw Calumet sitting on a pile of timber near the ranchhouse, leaning lazily forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin on his hands, gazing speculatively into the afternoon haze. Dade noted that he was looking southward, and he turned and followed his gaze to see, far out in the valley, a horseman approaching.
Dade had turned stealthily and thought his movement had been unobserved by Calumet, and he started when the latter slowly remarked:
"Well, he's comin', after all. I was thinkin' he wouldn't."
"That's him, all right, I reckon," returned Dade. He shot a glance at Calumet's face—it was expressionless.
There was a silence until Taggart reached the low hill in the valley wh
ere on the day following his coming to the Lazy Y Calumet had seen Lonesome, before the dog had begun the stalk that had ended in its death. Then Calumet turned to Dade, a derisive light in his eyes.
"Do you reckon Betty will be glad to see him?"
"I don't reckon you done just right in askin' him here after what he said in the Red Dog," returned Dade.
Calumet seemed amused. "Shucks, you're a kid yet," he said. He ignored Dade, giving his attention to Taggart, who was now near the bunkhouse.
Taggart's coming was attended with interest by Malcolm, who, hearing hoofbeats in the ranchhouse yard came to the door of the bunkhouse where he had been doing some small task; by Bob, who hobbled out of the stable door, his eyes wide; and by Betty, who, forewarned of the visit by Dade, had come out upon the porch and had been watching his approach.
Dade was interested also, betraying his interest by covertly eyeing Taggart as he drew his pony to a halt. But apparently Calumet's interest was largely negative, for he did not move from his position, merely glancing at Taggart as the latter halted his pony, grinning mildly at him and speaking to him in a slow drawl.
"Get off your cayuse an' visit," he invited.
Taggart's smile was wide as he dismounted. He did not seem to look at the others particularly, not even deigning a glance at Dade, but his gaze fell on Betty with an insolent boldness that brought a flush to that young lady's face. There was a challenge in the look he gave her. He dismounted and bowed mockingly to her, sweeping his hat from his head with a movement so derisive that it made Dade longingly finger his pistol butt.
Calumet still sat on the pile of lumber. His smile was engaging even if, as it seemed to Dade, it was a trifle shallow. But now Calumet slowly got to his feet. He stood erect, yawned, and stretched himself. Then turning, his back to Taggart, who had come close to him, he looked at Betty, steadily, intently, with a command showing so plainly in his eyes that the girl involuntarily started.
"Betty," he said slowly; "come here."
The Boss of the Lazy Y Page 9
