The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  And when she heard a slight sound, seeming to arise from the room below her, she caught her breath with a gasp of horror.

  But she did not move. She stood there, with no breath issuing from between her lips, for many minutes, it seemed—waiting, dreading, a cold paralysis stealing over her.

  And then again it came—an odd sound—slow, creaking, seeming to come always nearer. It was not until she heard the sound directly outside her door that she realized that what she heard was a step on the stairs. And then, convinced that Harlan had gained entrance, she slipped noiselessly across the room to the front wall, where she took down a heavy pistol that hung from a wooden peg.

  With the huge weapon in hand she returned to a point near the center of the room, and with bated breath and glowing, determined eyes, faced the door.

  And when, after a time, she heard the door creak with a weight that seemed to be against it—after she saw it give; heard the lock break, and saw a man’s form darken the opening as the door was flung wide—she pressed the trigger of the weapon once—twice—three times—in rapid succession.

  She heard the man curse, saw him catch at his chest, and tumble headlong toward her. And she fired again, thinking he was trying to grasp her.

  She laughed hysterically when she saw him sink to the floor and stretch out with a queer inertness. Then, swaying, her brain reeling with the horror of the thing, she managed to get to the bed at the other side of the room. When she reached it she collapsed gently, a long, convulsive shudder running over her.

  CHAPTER XII

  BARBARA SEES A LIGHT

  When Barbara regained consciousness it was with a gasp of horror over the realization of what had happened. She stiffened immediately, however, and lay, straining at the dread paralysis that had gripped her; for she saw Harlan standing at her side, looking down into her face, his own set in a grim smile.

  She must have fainted again, for it seemed to her that a long period of time elapsed until she again became conscious of her surroundings. Harlan had moved off a little, though he was still watching her with the grimly humorous expression.

  She sat up, staring wildly at him; then shrank back, getting as far away from him as she could.

  “You!” she gasped, “You! Didn’t I—”

  He interrupted her, drawling his words a little:

  “The guy you shot was Lawson. You bored him a heap. I’ve toted him downstairs. He’s plenty dead. It was plumb good shootin’—for a woman.”

  His words shocked her to action, and she got up and walked around the foot of the bed, from where she could see the spot where the intruder must have fallen after she had shot him. A dark stain showed on the floor where the man had lain, and the sight of it sent her a step backward, so that she struck the foot of the bed. She caught at the bed and grasped one of the posts, holding tightly to it while she looked Harlan over with dreading, incredulous eyes.

  “It—it wasn’t you!” she demanded. “Are you sure?”

  He smiled and said, slowly and consolingly: “I reckon if you’d shot me I’d be knowin’ it. Don’t take it so hard, ma’am. Why, if a man goes to breakin’ into a woman’s room that way he sure ain’t fit to go on livin’ in a world where there is a woman.”

  “It was Lawson—you say? Meeder Lawson—the Rancho Seco foreman? I thought—why, I thought it was you!”

  “I’m thankin’ you, ma’am,” he said, ironically. “But if you’ll just stick your head out of that window, you’ll see it was Lawson, right enough. He’s layin’ right below the window.”

  She did as bidden, and she saw Lawson lying on the ground beneath the window, flat on his back, his face turned upward with the radiant moonlight shining full upon his wide-open, staring eyes.

  Barbara glanced swiftly, and then drew back into the room, shuddering.

  Harlan stood, silently regarding her, while she walked again to the bed and sat upon it, staring out into the flood of moonlight, her face ghastly, her hands hanging limply at her sides.

  She had killed a man. And though there was justification for the deed, she could not fight down the shivering horror that had seized her, the overpowering and terrible knowledge that she had taken human life.

  She sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, and Harlan said no word to her, standing motionless, his arms folded, one hand slowly caressing his chin, as he watched her.

  After a time, drawing a long, shuddering breath, she looked up at him.

  “How did you know—what made you come—here?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t reckonin’ to sleep tonight—havin’ thoughts—about things,” he said. “I was puttin’ in a heap of my time settin’ in the doorway of the bunkhouse, wonderin’ what had made you so scared of me. While I was tryin’ to figure it out I saw Lawson comin’. There was somethin’ in his actions which didn’t jibe with my ideas of square dealin’, an’ so I kept lookin’ at him. An’ when I saw him prowlin’ around, tryin’ to open doors an’ windows, why, I just naturally trailed him. An’ I found the window he opened. I reckon that’s all.”

  She got up, swaying a little, a wan smile on her face that reflected her astonishment and wonder over the way she had jumbled things. For this man—the man she had feared when she had left him standing outside the door some hours before—had been eager to protect her from the other, who had attacked her. He had been waiting, watching.

  Moreover, there was in Harlan’s eyes as he stood in the room a considerate, deferential gleam that told her more than words could have conveyed to her—a something that convinced her that he was not the type of man she had thought him.

  The knowledge filled her with a strange delight. There was relief in her eyes, and her voice was almost steady when she again spoke to him:

  “Harlan,” she said, “did father really send you here? Did he make you promise to come?”

  “I reckon he did, ma’am,” he said.

  For an instant she looked fairly at him, intently searching his eyes for indications of untruthfulness. Then she drew a long breath of conviction.

  “I believe you,” she said.

  Harlan swept his hat from his head. He bowed, and there was an odd leap in his voice:

  “That tickles me a heap, ma’am. I don’t know when I’ve heard anything that pleased me more.”

  He backed away from her until he reached the doorway. And she saw his eyes—wide and eloquent—even in the subdued light of the doorway.

  “I’d go to sleep now, ma’am, if I was you. You need it a heap. It’s been a long day for you—an’ things ain’t gone just right. I don’t reckon there’ll be anybody botherin’ you any more tonight.”

  “And you?” she asked, “won’t you try to get some sleep, too?”

  He laughed, telling her that he would “ketch a wink or two.” Then he turned and went down the stairs—she could hear him as he opened a lower door and went out.

  Looking out of the window an instant later, she saw him taking Lawson’s body away. And still later, hearing a sound outside, she stole to the window again.

  Below, seated on the threshold of the door that led into the room she had entered when she had crossed the patio, she saw Harlan. He was smoking a cigarette, leaning against the door jamb in an attitude of complete relaxation.

  There was something in his manner that comforted her—a calm confidence, a slow ease of movement as he fingered his cigarette that indicated perfect tranquility—an atmosphere of peace that could not have surrounded him had he meditated any evil whatever.

  She knew, now, that she had misjudged him. For he had made no attempt to take advantage of her loneliness and helplessness. And whatever his reputation—whatever the crimes he had committed against the laws—he had been a gentleman in his attitude toward her. That feature of his conduct dominated her thoughts as she stretched out on the bed; it was her last coherent thought as she went to sleep.

  CHAPTER XIII

  HARLAN TAKES CHARGE

  Barbara could not have told why
she had not acted upon her determination to ride westward to the Star ranch to acquaint John Haydon with the predicament into which the events of the past few hours had plunged her. She could not have explained why she permitted the first day—after Harlan’s coming—to pass without going to see Haydon, any more than she could have explained why she permitted many other days to pass in the same manner.

  She was almost convinced, though, that it was because of the manner in which Harlan took charge of the ranch—the capable and business-like way he had of treating the men.

  For the outfit came in late in the afternoon following the night which had marked the death of Lawson—the straw-boss explaining that he had received explicit orders from Lawson to “work” a grass level several miles down the river.

  One other reason for Barbara’s failure to ride to the Star—a reason that she did not permit to dwell prominently in her thoughts—was resentment.

  She had permitted the first day to pass without going to see Haydon. But when it had gone and another day dawned without Haydon coming to see her, she felt that he was deliberately absenting himself. For certainly he must have heard what had happened, and if he thought as much of her as he had led her to believe he would have come to her instantly.

  Had Haydon seen the defiant gleam of her eyes when she gazed westward—in the direction of the Star—he might have realized that each day he stayed away from the Rancho Seco would make it that much more difficult for him to explain.

  Barbara stayed indoors much of the time during the first days of Harlan’s control of the ranch, but from the windows she saw him—noted that the men obeyed him promptly and without question.

  A sense of loss, of emptiness, still afflicted the girl, and yet through it all there ran a thrill of satisfaction, of assurance that the steady-eyed man who had saved her from Deveny, and who had treated her like a courtier of old on the night she had killed Lawson, seemed to have her welfare in mind, seemed—despite the reputation the people of the country had given him—to have constituted himself her guardian, without expectation of reward of the kind she had feared he sought.

  Harlan’s method of assuming control of the Rancho Seco had been direct and simple. When the twenty-seven men of the outfit had straggled into the yard surrounding the big corral—the chuck-wagon, bearing the cook and his assistant, trailing a little behind, and followed by the horses of the remuda with the wrangler hurling vitriolic language in the rear—Harlan was standing beside Purgatory near the corral fence in front of one of the bunkhouses.

  He had paid—apparently—no attention to the men as they dismounted, unsaddled, and turned their horses into the corral, and he did not even look at the belligerent-eyed cook whose sardonic glance roved over him.

  But the men of the outfit watched him out of the corners of their eyes; as they passed him to go to the bunkhouses, they shot inquiring, speculating glances at one another, full of curiosity, not unmixed with astonishment over his continued silence.

  It was when, drawn by the wonder that consumed them, they gathered in a group near the door of one of the bunkhouses, that Harlan moved toward them.

  For he had noted that they had become grouped, and that into the atmosphere had come a tension.

  Harlan’s actions had been governed by design. His continued silence had been strategy of a subtle order. It had attracted the attention of the men, it had intrigued their interest.

  If he had spoken to them while they had been moving about on their different errands, telling them that henceforth he was to manage the Rancho Seco, they would have given him scant attention. Also, he would not have been able to study their faces as he had studied them while they had been watching him, and he would not have gained the knowledge of their characters that he now possessed.

  Besides, a humorous malice possessed Harlan—he wanted to view them collectively when he gave them his news, to note the various ways in which they would receive it.

  Absolute silence greeted Harlan’s forward movement. He could hear the labored breathing of some of the men—men of violent temper who sensed trouble—and his grin grew broad as he halted within a dozen feet of the group.

  “Boys,” he said, slowly, “you’ve got a new boss. It’s me. A day or so ago, crossin’ from Pardo, I run into a ruckus at Sentinel Rock. Lane Morgan was the center of the ruckus—an’ he got perforated—plenty. But before he cashed in he got a gleam of downright sense an’ told me he’d been lookin’ for me, to make me manager of the Rancho Seco.

  “I’m reckonin’ to be manager—beginnin’ now. If there’s any of you men that ain’t admirin’ to do the jumpin’ when I yap orders to you, you’re doin’ your gassin’ right now. Them that’s pinin’ to work under me is sure of a square deal, beginnin’ now, and continuin’ henceforth. I reckon that’s all.”

  Into Harlan’s eyes as he talked had come that vacuous light that had been in them when he had faced Deveny’s men in Lamo—the light that was always in his eyes whenever he faced more than one man, with trouble imminent.

  He saw the face of every man in the group—while seeming not to be looking at any of them. He noted the various shades of expression that came into their faces as they digested his words, he saw how some of them watched him with sober interest and how others permitted themselves a sneer of incredulity or dislike.

  He noted that a tall, slender, swarthy man on the extreme left of the group watched him with a malevolent gaze, his eyes flaming hate; he saw a black-haired, hook-nosed fellow near the center of the group watching him with a grin of cold contempt.

  It seemed to Harlan that a fair proportion of the men were willing to acknowledge his authority—for they were frankly studying him, ready to greet him as their employer. Many others, however, were as frankly hostile.

  After Harlan ceased speaking there came a short silence, during which many of the men looked at one another inquiringly.

  It was a moment during which, had a leader appeared to take the initiative for those who intended to dissent from Harlan’s rule, the outfit might have been divided.

  Evidently the tall, swarthy man divined that the time to dissent had come, for he cleared his throat, and grinned felinely.

  Before he could speak, however, a short man with keen eyes that, since the instant they had rested upon Harlan, had been glowing with something that might have been defined as mingled astonishment and delight thinly concealed by a veneer of humor—said distinctly:

  “You crossed over from Pardo—you say?”

  Harlan nodded, and a pin-point of recognition glowed in his eyes as he looked at the man.

  The other laughed, lowly. “Seems I know you,” he said. “You’re ‘Drag’ Harlan!”

  A tremor ran through the group. There was a concerted stiffening of bodies, a general sigh from lungs in process of deflation. And then the group stood silent, every man watching Harlan with that intent curiosity that comes with one’s first glimpse of a noted character, introduced without expectation.

  Harlan noted that a change had come over the men. Those whose faces had betrayed their inclination to accept his authority had taken—without exception—a glum, disappointed expression. On the other hand, those who had formerly betrayed hostility, were now grinning with satisfaction.

  A tremor of malicious amusement, expressed visibly by a flicker of his eyelids, was Harlan’s only emotion over the change that had come in the men of the group. He could now have selected those of the men who—as Lane Morgan had said—could not be trusted, and he could have pointed out those who had been loyal to Morgan, and who would be loyal to Barbara and himself.

  Among the former were the tall, swarthy man on the extreme left, and the hook-nosed fellow near the center. There were perhaps ten of the latter, and it was plain to Harlan that the short man who had spoken was their leader.

  “‘Drag’ Harlan—eh?”

  This was the tall, swarthy man. The malevolence had gone from his eyes, he was grinning broadly, though there was respect of a fawning
character in his manner as he stepped out from the group and halted within a few feet of Harlan.

  “Me an’ my friends wasn’t none tickled to find that we was goin’ to have a new manager. We was sort of expectin’ Miss Barbara to do the runnin’ herself. But if you say you’re runnin’ things, that makes it a whole lot different. We ain’t buckin’ ‘Drag’ Harlan’s game.”

  “Thank you,” grinned Harlan. “I saw you reportin’ to Miss Morgan. You’re straw-boss, I reckon.”

  “You’ve hit it. I’m Stroud—Lafe Stroud.”

  “You’ll keep on bein’ straw-boss,” said Harlan, shortly. “I’m appointin’ a foreman.”

  “Where’s Lawson?”

  It was Stroud who spoke. There was a shadow of disappointment in his eyes.

  “Lawson won’t be needin’ a title any more,” said Harlan, narrowing his eyes at the other. “He needs plantin’. Soon as we get set some of you boys can go over an’ take care of him. You’ll find him in the harness shop. He busted down the door of Miss Barbara’s room last night, an’ she made a colander out of him.”

  Harlan ignored the effect of his news on the men, fixing his gaze on the short man who had spoken first, and who was now standing silent, in an attitude that hinted of dejection.

  “You’ll be foreman, Linton,” he stated shortly.

  Linton, who had been glumly listening, was so startled by the sudden descent upon his shoulders of the mantle of authority that he straightened with a snap and grabbed wildly at his hat—which dropped from his head despite his effort to clutch it, revealing a mop of fiery red hair. When he straightened, after recovering the hat, his freckled face was crimson with embarrassment and astonishment.

  “I’m obliged to you,” he mumbled.

  That had ended it. The following morning Linton came to Harlan for orders, and a little later the entire outfit, headed by Stroud, and trailed by the chuck-wagon and the horses of the remuda, started southward to a distant section of the big level, leaving Linton and Harlan at the ranchhouse.