The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gunman's Reckoning, by Max Brand

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Title: Gunman's Reckoning

Author: Max Brand

Release Date: November 22, 2003 [EBook #10066]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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GUNMAN'S RECKONING

By

Max Brand



1921



GUNMAN'S RECKONING



1


The fifty empty freights danced and rolled and rattled on the rough road
bed and filled Jericho Pass with thunder; the big engine was laboring
and grunting at the grade, but five cars back the noise of the
locomotive was lost. Yet there is a way to talk above the noise of a
freight train just as there is a way to whistle into the teeth of a
stiff wind. This freight-car talk is pitched just above the ordinary
tone--it is an overtone of conversation, one might say--and it is
distinctly nasal. The brakie could talk above the racket, and so, of
course, could Lefty Joe. They sat about in the center of the train, on
the forward end of one of the cars. No matter how the train lurched and
staggered over that fearful road bed, these two swayed in their places
as easily and as safely as birds on swinging perches. The brakie had
touched Lefty Joe for two dollars; he had secured fifty cents; and since
the vigor of Lefty's oaths had convinced him that this was all the money
the tramp had, the two now sat elbow to elbow and killed the distance
with their talk.

"It's like old times to have you here," said the brakie. "You used to
play this line when you jumped from coast to coast."

"Sure," said Lefty Joe, and he scowled at the mountains on either side
of the pass. The train was gathering speed, and the peaks lurched
eastward in a confused, ragged procession. "And a durned hard ride it's
been many a time."

"Kind of queer to see you," continued the brakie. "Heard you was rising
in the world."

He caught the face of the other with a rapid side glance, but Lefty Joe
was sufficiently concealed by the dark.

"Heard you were the main guy with a whole crowd behind you," went on the
brakie.

"Yeh?"

"Sure. Heard you was riding the cushions, and all that."

"Yeh?"

"But I guess it was all bunk; here you are back again, anyway."

"Yep," agreed Lefty.

The brakie scratched his head, for the silence of the tramp convinced
him that there had been, after all, a good deal of truth in the rumor.
He ran back on another tack and slipped about Lefty.

"I never laid much on what they said," he averred. "I know you, Lefty;
you can do a lot, but when it comes to leading a whole gang, like they
said you was, and all that--well, I knew it was a lie. Used to tell 'em
that."

"You talked foolish, then," burst out Lefty suddenly. "It was all
straight."

The brakie could hear the click of his companion's teeth at the period
to this statement, as though he regretted his outburst.

"Well, I'll be hanged," murmured the brakie innocently.

Ordinarily, Lefty was not easily lured, but this night he apparently was
in the mood for talk.

"Kennebec Lou, the Clipper, and Suds. Them and a lot more. They was all
with me; they was all under me; I was the Main Guy!"

What a ring in his voice as he said it! The beaten general speaks thus
of his past triumphs. The old man remembered his youth in such a voice.
The brakie was impressed; he repeated the three names.

"Even Suds?" he said. "Was even Suds with you?"

"Even Suds!"

The brakie stirred a little, wabbling from side to side as he found a
more comfortable position; instead of looking straight before him, he
kept a side-glance steadily upon his companion, and one could see that
he intended to remember what was said on this night.

"Even Suds," echoed the brakie. "Good heavens, and ain't he a man for
you?"

"He was a man," replied Lefty Joe with an indescribable emphasis.

"Huh?"

"He ain't a man any more."

"Get bumped off?"

"No. Busted."

The brakie considered this bit of news and rolled it back and forth and
tried its flavor against his gossiping palate.

"Did you fix him after he left you?"

"No."

"I see. You busted him while he was still with you. Then Kennebec Lou
and the Clipper get sore at the way you treat Suds. So here you are back
on the road with your gang all gone bust. Hard luck, Lefty."

But Lefty whined with rage at this careless diagnosis of his downfall.

"You're all wrong," he said. "You're all wrong. You don't know nothin'."

The brakie waited, grinning securely into the night, and preparing his
mind for the story. But the story consisted of one word, flung bitterly
into the rushing air.

"Donnegan!"

"Him?" cried the brakie, starting in his place.

"Donnegan!" cried Lefty, and his voice made the word into a curse.

The brakie nodded.

"Them that get tangled with Donnegan don't last long. You ought to know
that."

At this the grief, hate, and rage in Lefty Joe were blended and caused
an explosion.

"Confound Donnegan. Who's Donnegan? I ask you, who's Donnegan?"

"A guy that makes trouble," replied the brakie, evidently hard put to it
to find a definition.

"Oh, don't he make it, though? Confound him!"

"You ought to of stayed shut of him, Lefty."

"Did I hunt him up, I ask you? Am I a nut? No, I ain't. Do I go along
stepping on the tail of a rattlesnake? No more do I look up Donnegan."

He groaned as he remembered.

"I was going fine. Nothing could of been better. I had the boys
together. We was doing so well that I was riding the cushions and I went
around planning the jobs. Nice, clean work. No cans tied to it. But one
day I had to meet Suds down in the Meriton Jungle. You know?"

"I've heard--plenty," said the brakie.

"Oh, it ain't so bad--the Meriton. I've seen a lot worse. Found Suds
there, and Suds was playing Black Jack with an ol gink. He was trimmin'
him close. Get Suds going good and he could read 'em three down and bury
'em as fast as they came under the bottom card. Takes a hand to do that
sort of work. And that's the sort of work Suds was doing for the old
man. Pretty soon the game was over and the old man was busted. He took
up his pack and beat it, saying nothing and looking sick. I started
talking to Suds.

"And while he was talking, along comes a bo and gives us a once-over. He
knew me. 'Is this here a friend of yours, Lefty? he says.

"'Sure,' says I.

"'Then, he's in Dutch. He trimmed that old dad, and the dad is one of
Donnegan's pals. Wait till Donnegan hears how your friend made the cards
talk while he was skinning the old boy!

"He passes me the wink and goes on. Made me sick. I turned to Suds, and
the fool hadn't batted an eye. Never even heard of Donnegan. You know
how it is? Half the road never heard of it; part of the roads don't know
nothin' else. He's like a jumpin tornado; hits every ten miles and don't
bend a blade of grass in between.

"Took me about five minutes to tell Suds about Donnegan. Then Suds let
out a grunt and started down the trail for the old dad. Missed him. Dad
had got out of the Jungle and copped a rattler. Suds come back half
green and half yeller.

"'I've done it; I've spilled the beans,' he says.

"'That ain't half sayin' it,' says I.

"Well, we lit out after that and beat it down the line as fast as we
could. We got the rest of the boys together; I had a swell job planned
up. Everything staked. Then, the first news come that Donnegan was after
Suds.

"News just dropped on us out of the sky. Suds, you know how he is.
Strong bluff. Didn't bat an eye. Laughed at this Donnegan. Got a hold of
an old pal of his, named Levine, and he is a mighty hot scrapper. From a
knife to a toenail, they was nothing that Levine couldn't use in a
fight. Suds sent him out to cross Donnegan's trail.

"He crossed it, well enough. Suds got a telegram a couple days later
saying that Levine had run into a wild cat and was considerable chawed
and would Suds send him a stake to pay the doctor?

"Well, after that Suds got sort of nervous. Didn't take no interest in
his work no more. Kept a weather eye out watching for the coming of
Donnegan. And pretty soon he up and cleaned out of camp.

"Next day, sure enough, along comes Donnegan and asks for Suds. We kept
still--all but Kennebec Lou. Kennebec is some fighter himself. Two
hundred pounds of mule muscle with the brain of a devil to tell what to
do--yes, you can lay it ten to one that Kennebec is some fighter. That
day he had a good edge from a bottle of rye he was trying for a friend.

"He didn't need to go far to find trouble in Donnegan. A wink and a grin
was all they needed for a password, and then they went at each other's
throats. Kennebec made the first pass and hit thin air; and before he
got back on his heels, Donnegan had hit him four times. Then Kennebec
jumped back and took a fresh start with a knife."

Here Lefty Joe paused and sighed.

He continued, after a long interval: "Five minutes later we was all busy
tyin' up what was left of Kennebec; Donnegan was down the road whistlin'
like a bird. And that was the end of my gang. What with Kennebec Lou and
Suds both gone, what chance did I have to hold the boys together?"




2


The brakie heard this recital with the keenest interest, nodding from
time to time.

"What beats me, Lefty," he said at the end of the story, "is why you
didn't knife into the fight yourself and take a hand with Donnegan"

At this Lefty was silent. It was rather the silence of one which cannot
tell whether or not it is worth while to speak than it was the silence
of one who needs time for thought.

"I'll tell you why, bo. It's because when I take a trail like that it
only has one end I'm going to bump off the other bird or he's going to
bump off me"

The brakie cleared his throat

"Look here," he said, "looks to me like a queer thing that you're on
this train"

"Does it" queried Lefty softly "Why?"

"Because Donnegan is two cars back, asleep."

"The devil you say!"

The brakie broke into laughter

"Don't kid yourself along," he warned. "Don't do it. It ain't
wise--with me."

"What you mean?"

"Come on, Lefty. Come clean. You better do a fade off this train."

"Why, you fool--"

"It don't work, Joe. Why, the minute I seen you I knew why you was here.
I knew you meant to croak Donnegan."

"Me croak him? Why should I croak him?"

"Because you been trailing him two thousand miles. Because you ain't got
the nerve to meet him face to face and you got to sneak in and take a
crack at him while he's lying asleep. That's you, Lefty Joe!"

He saw Lefty sway toward him; but, all stories aside, it is a very bold
tramp that cares for argument of a serious nature with a brakie. And
even Lefty Joe was deterred from violent action. In the darkness his
upper lip twitched, but he carefully smoothed his voice.

"You don't know nothing, pal," he declared.

"Don't I?"

"Nothing," repeated Lefty.

He reached into his clothes and produced something which rustled in the
rush of wind. He fumbled, and finally passed a scrap of the paper into
the hand of the brakie.

"My heavens," drawled the latter. "D'you think you can fix me with a
buck for a job like this? You can't bribe me to stand around while you
bump off Donnegan. Can't be done, Lefty!"

"One buck, did you say?"

Lefty Joe expertly lighted a match in spite of the roaring wind, and by
this wild light the brakie read the denomination of the bill with a
gasp. He rolled up his face and was in time to catch the sneer on the
face of Lefty before a gust snatched away the light of the match.

They had topped the highest point in Jericho Pass and now the long train
dropped into the down grade with terrific speed. The wind became a
hurricane. But to the brakie all this was no more than a calm night. His
thoughts were raging in him, and if he looked back far enough he
remembered the dollar which Donnegan had given him; and how he had
promised Donnegan to give the warning before anything went wrong. He
thought of this, but rustling against the palm of his right hand was
the bill whose denomination he had read, and that figure ate into his
memory, ate into his brain.

After all what was Donnegan to him? What was Donnegan but a worthless
tramp? Without any answer to that last monosyllabic query, the brakie
hunched forward, and began to work his way up the train.

The tramp watched him go with laughter. It was silent laughter. In the
most quiet room it would not have sounded louder than a continual, light
hissing noise. Then he, in turn, moved from his place, and worked his
way along the train in the opposite direction to that in which the
brakie had disappeared.

He went expertly, swinging from car to car with apelike clumsiness--and
surety. Two cars back. It was not so easy to reach the sliding side door
of that empty car. Considering the fact that it was night, that the
train was bucking furiously over the old roadbed, Lefty had a not
altogether simple task before him. But he managed it with the same
apelike adroitness. He could climb with his feet as well as his hands.
He would trust a ledge as well as he would trust the rung of a ladder.

Under his discreet manipulations from above the door loosened and it
became possible to work it back. But even this the tramp did with
considerable care. He took advantage of the lurching of the train, and
every time the car jerked he forced the door to roll a little, so that
it might seem for all the world as though the motion of the train alone
were operating it.

For suppose that Donnegan wakened out of his sound sleep and observed
the motion of the door; he would be suspicious if the door opened in a
single continued motion; but if it worked in these degrees he would be
hypersuspicious if he dreamed of danger. So the tramp gave five whole
minutes to that work.

When it was done he waited for a time, another five minutes, perhaps, to
see if the door would be moved back. And when it was not disturbed, but
allowed to stand open, he knew that Donnegan still slept.

It was time then for action, and Lefty Joe prepared for the descent into
the home of the enemy. Let it not be thought that he approached this
moment with a fallen heart, and with a cringing, snaky feeling as a man
might be expected to feel when he approached to murder a sleeping
foeman. For that was not Lefty's emotion at all. Rather he was overcome
by a tremendous happiness. He could have sung with joy at the thought
that he was about to rid himself of this pest.

True, the gang was broken up. But it might rise again. Donnegan had
fallen upon it like a blight. But with Donnegan out of the way would not
Suds come back to him instantly? And would not Kennebec Lou himself
return in admiration of a man who had done what he, Kennebec, could not
do? With those two as a nucleus, how greatly might he not build!

Justice must be done to Lefty Joe. He approached this murder as a
statesman approaches the removal of a foe from the path of public
prosperity. There was no more rancor in his attitude. It was rather the
blissful largeness of the heart that comes to the politician when he
unearths the scandal which will blight the race of his rival.

With the peaceful smile of a child, therefore, Lefty Joe lay stretched
at full length along the top of the car and made his choice of weapons.
On the whole, his usual preference, day or night, was for a revolver.
Give him a gat and Lefty was at home in any company. But he had reasons
for transferring his alliance on this occasion. In the first place, a
box car which is reeling and pitching to and fro, from side to side, is
not a very good shooting platform--even for a snapshot like Lefty Joe.
Also, the pitch darkness in the car would be a further annoyance to good
aim. And in the third and most decisive place, if he were to miss his
first shot he would not be extremely apt to place his second bullet. For
Donnegan had a reputation with his own revolver. Indeed, it was said
that he rarely carried the weapon, because when he did he was always
tempted too strongly to use it. So that the chances were large that
Donnegan would not have the gun now. Yet if he did have it--if he,
Lefty, did miss his first shot--then the story would be brief and bitter
indeed.

On the other hand, a knife offered advantages almost too numerous to be
listed. It gave one the deadly assurance which only comes with the
knowledge of an edge of steel in one's hand. And when the knife reaches
its mark it ends a battle at a stroke.

Of course these doubts and considerations pro and con went through the
mind of the tramp in about the same space of time that it requires for a
dog to waken, snap at a fly, and drowse again. Eventually, he took out
his knife. It was a sheath knife which he wore from a noose of silk
around his throat, and it always lay closest to his heart. The blade of
the knife was of the finest Spanish steel, in the days when Spanish
smiths knew how to draw out steel to a streak of light; the handle of
the knife was from Milan. On the whole, it was a delicate and beautiful
weapon--and it had the durable suppleness of--say--hatred itself.

Lefty Joe, like a pirate in a tale, took this weapon between his teeth;
allowed his squat, heavy bulk to swing down and dangle at arm's length
for an instant, and then he swung himself a little and landed softly on
the floor of the car.

Who has not heard snow drop from the branch upon other snow beneath?
That was the way Lefty Joe dropped to the floor of the car. He remained
as he had fallen; crouched, alert, with one hand spread out on the
boards to balance him and give him a leverage and a start in case he
should wish to spring in any direction.

Then he began to probe the darkness in every direction; with every
glance he allowed his head to dart out a little. The movement was like a
chicken pecking at imaginary grains of corn. But eventually he satisfied
himself that his quarry lay in the forward end of the car; that he was
prone; that he, Lefty, had accomplished nine-tenths of his purpose by
entering the place of his enemy unobserved.




3


But even though this major step was accomplished successfully, Lefty Joe
was not the man to abandon caution in the midst of an enterprise. The
roar of the train would have covered sounds ten times as loud as those
of his snaky approach, yet he glided forward with as much care as though
he were stepping on old stairs in a silent house. He could see a vague
shadow--Donnegan; but chiefly he worked by that peculiar sense of
direction which some people possess in a dim light. The blind, of
course, have that sense in a high degree of sensitiveness, but even
those who are not blind may learn to trust the peculiar and inverted
sense of direction.

With this to aid him, Lefty Joe went steadily, slowly across the first
and most dangerous stage of his journey. That is, he got away from the
square of the open door, where the faint starlight might vaguely serve
to silhouette his body. After this, it was easier work.

Of course, when he alighted on the floor of the car, the knife had been
transferred from his teeth to his left hand; and all during his progress
forward the knife was being balanced delicately, as though he were not
yet quite sure of the weight of the weapon. Just as a prize fighter
keeps his deadly, poised hands in play, moving them as though he fears
to lose his intimate touch with them.

This stalking had occupied a matter of split seconds. Now Lefty Joe rose
slowly. He was leaning very far forward, and he warded against the roll
of the car by spreading out his right hand close to the floor; his left
hand he poised with the knife, and he began to gather his muscles for
the leap. He had already taken the last preliminary movement--he had
swung himself to the right side a little and, lightening his left foot,
had thrown all his weight upon the right--in fact, his body was
literally suspended in the instant of springing, catlike, when the
shadow which was Donnegan came to life.

The shadow convulsed as shadows are apt to swirl in a green pool when a
stone is dropped into it; and a bit of board two feet long and some
eight inches wide cracked against the shins of Lefty Joe.

It was about the least dramatic weapon that could have been chosen under
those circumstances, but certainly no other defense could have
frustrated Lefty's spring so completely. Instead of launching out in a
compact mass whose point of contact was the reaching knife, Lefty
crawled stupidly forward upon his knees, and had to throw out his knife
hand to save his balance.

It is a singular thing to note how important balance is to men. Animals
fight, as a rule, just as well on their backs as they do on their feet.
They can lie on their sides and bite; they can swing their claws even
while they are dropping through the air. But man needs poise and balance
before he can act. What is speed in a fighter? It is not so much an
affair of the muscles as it is the power of the brain to adapt itself
instantly to each new move and put the body in a state of balance. In
the prize ring speed does not mean the ability to strike one lightning
blow, but rather that, having finished one drive, the fighter is in
position to hit again, and then again, so that no matter where the
impetus of his last lunge has placed him he is ready and poised to shoot
all his weight behind his fist again and drive it accurately at a
vulnerable spot. Individually the actions may be slow; but the series of
efforts seem rapid. That is why a superior boxer seems to hypnotize his
antagonist with movements which to the spectator seem perfectly easy,
slow, and sure.

But if Lefty lacked much in agility, he had an animallike sense of
balance. Sprawling, helpless, he saw the convulsed shadow that was
Donnegan take form as a straight shooting body that plunged through the
air above him. Lefty Joe dug his left elbow into the floor of the car
and whirled back upon his shoulders, bunching his knees high over his
stomach. Nine chances out of ten, if Donnegan had fallen flatwise upon
this alert enemy, he would have received those knees in the pit of his
own stomach and instantly been paralyzed. But in the jumping, rattling
car even Donnegan was capable of making mistakes. His mistake in this
instance saved his life, for springing too far, he came down not in
reaching distance of Lefty's throat, but with his chest on the knees of
the older tramp.

As a result, Donnegan was promptly kicked head over heels and tumbled
the length of the car. Lefty was on his feet and plunging after the
tumbling form in the twinkling of an eye, literally speaking, and he was
only kept from burying his knife in the flesh of his foe by a sway of
the car that staggered him in the act of striking. Donnegan, the next
instant, was beyond reach. He had struck the end of the car and
rebounded like a ball of rubber at a tangent. He slid into the shadows,
and Lefty, putting his own shoulders to the wall, felt for his revolver
and knew that he was lost. He had failed in his first surprise attack,
and without surprise to help him now he was gone. He weighed his
revolver, decided that it would be madness to use it, for if he missed,
Donnegan would instantly be guided by the flash to shoot him full of
holes.

Something slipped by the open door--something that glimmered faintly;
and Lefty Joe knew that it was the red head of Donnegan. Donnegan,
soft-footed as a shadow among shadows. Donnegan on a blood trail. It
lowered the heartbeat of Lefty Joe to a tremendous, slow pulse. In that
moment he gave up hope and, resigning himself to die, determined to
fight to the last gasp, as became one of his reputation and national
celebrity on "the road."

Yet Lefty Joe was no common man and no common fighter. No, let the shade
of Rusty Dick, whom Lefty met and beat in his glorious prime--let this
shade arise and speak for the prowess of Lefty Joe. In fact it was
because he was such a good fighter himself that he recognized his
helplessness in the hands of Donnegan.

The faint glimmer of color had passed the door. It was dissolved in
deeper shadows at once, and soundlessly; Lefty knew that Donnegan was
closer and closer.

Of one thing he felt more and more confident, that Donnegan did not have
his revolver with him. Otherwise, he would have used it before. For what
was darkness to this devil, Donnegan. He walked like a cat, and most
likely he could see like a cat in the dark. Instinctively the older
tramp braced himself with his right hand held at a guard before his
breast and the knife poised in his left, just as a man would prepare to
meet the attack of a panther. He even took to probing the darkness in a
strange hope to catch the glimmer of the eyes of Donnegan as he moved to
the attack. If there were a hair's breadth of light, then Donnegan
himself must go down. A single blow would do it.

But the devil had instructed his favorite Donnegan how to fight. He did
not come lunging through the shadows to meet the point of that knife.
Instead, he had worked a snaky way along the floor and now he leaped in
and up at Lefty, taking him under the arms.

A dozen hands, it seemed, laid hold on Lefty. He fought like a demon and
tore himself away, but the multitude of hands pursued him. They were
small hands. Where they closed they tore the clothes and bit into his
very flesh. Once a hand had him by the throat, and when Lefty jerked
himself away it was with a feeling that his flesh had been seared by
five points of red-hot iron. All this time his knife was darting; once
it ripped through cloth, but never once did it find the target. And half
a second later Donnegan got his hold. The flash of the knife as Lefty
raised it must have guided the other. He shot his right hand up behind
the left shoulder of the other and imprisoned the wrist. Not only did it
make the knife hand helpless, but by bearing down with his own weight
Donnegan could put his enemy in most exquisite torture.

For an instant they whirled; then they went down, and Lefty was on top.
Only for a moment. The impetus which had sent him to the floor was used
by Donnegan to turn them over, and once fairly on top his left hand was
instantly at the throat of Lefty.

Twice Lefty made enormous efforts, but then he was done. About his body
the limbs of Donnegan were twisted, tightening with incredible force;
just as hot iron bands sink resistlessly into place. The strangle-hold
cut away life at its source. Once he strove to bury his teeth in the arm
of Donnegan. Once, as the horror caught at him, he strove to shriek for
help. All he succeeded in doing was in raising an awful, sobbing
whisper. Then, looking death in the face, Lefty plunged into the great
darkness.




4


When he wakened, he jumped at a stride into the full possession of his
faculties. He had been placed near the open door, and the rush of night
air had done its work in reviving him. But Lefty, drawn back to life,
felt only a vague wonder that his life had not been taken. Perhaps he
was being reserved by the victor for an Indian death of torment. He felt
cautiously and found that not only were his hands free, but his revolver
had not been taken from him. A familiar weight was on his chest--the
very knife had been returned to its sheath.

Had Donnegan returned these things to show how perfectly he despised his
enemy?

"He's gone!" groaned the tramp, sitting up quickly.

"He's here," said a voice that cut easily through the roar of the train.
"Waiting for you, Lefty."

The tramp was staggered again. But then, who had ever been able to
fathom the ways of Donnegan?

"Donnegan!" he cried with a sudden recklessness.

"Yes?"

"You're a fool!"

"Yes?"

"For not finishing the job."

Donnegan began to laugh. In the uproar of the train it was impossible
really to hear the sound, but Lefty caught the pulse of it. He fingered
his bruised throat; swallowing was a painful effort. And an
indescribable feeling came over him as he realized that he sat armed to
the teeth within a yard of the man he wanted to kill, and yet he was as
effectively rendered helpless as though iron shackles had been locked on
his wrists and legs. The night light came through the doorway, and he
could make out the slender outline of Donnegan and again he caught the
faint luster of that red hair; and out of the shadowy form a singular
power emanated and sapped his strength at the root.

Yet he went on viciously: "Sooner or later, Donnegan, I'll get you!"

The red head of Donnegan moved, and Lefty Joe knew that the younger man
was laughing again.

"Why are you after me?" he asked at length.

It was another blow in the face of Lefty. He sat for a time blinking
with owlish stupidity.

"Why?" he echoed. And he spoke his astonishment from the heart.

"Why am I after you?" he said again. "Why, confound you, ain't you
Donnegan?"

"Yes."

"Don't the whole road know that I'm after you and you after me?"

"The whole road is crazy. I'm not after you."

Lefty choked.

"Maybe I been dreaming. Maybe you didn't bust up the gang? Maybe you
didn't clean up on Suds and Kennebec?"

"Suds? Kennebec? I sort of remember meeting them."

"You sort of--the devil!" Lefty Joe sputtered the words. "And after you
cleaned up my crowd, ain't it natural and good sense for you to go on
and try to clean up on me?"

"Sounds like it."

"But I figured to beat you to it. I cut in on your trail, Donnegan, and
before I leave it you'll know a lot more about me."

"You're warning me ahead of time?"

"You've played this game square with me; I'll play square with you.
Next time there'll be no slips, Donnegan. I dunno why you should of
picked on me, though. Just the natural devil in you."

"I haven't picked on you," said Donnegan.

"What?"

"I'll give you my word."

A tingle ran through the blood of Lefty Joe. Somewhere he had heard, in
rumor, that the word of Donnegan was as good as gold. He recalled that
rumor now and something of dignity in the manner with which Donnegan
made his announcement carried a heavy weight. As a rule, the tramps
vowed with many oaths; here was one of the nights of the road who made
his bare word sufficient. And Lefty Joe heard with great wonder.

"All I ask," he said, "is why you hounded my gang, if you wasn't after
me?"

"I didn't hound them. I ran into Suds by accident. We had trouble. Then
Levine. Then Kennebec Lou tried to take a fall out of me."

A note of whimsical protest crept into the voice of Donnegan.

"Somehow there's always a fight wherever I go," he said. "Fights just
sort of grow up around me."

Lefty Joe snarled.

"You didn't mean nothing by just 'happening' to run into three of my
boys one after another?"

"Not a thing."

Lefty rocked himself back and forth in an ecstasy of impatience.

"Why don't you stay put?" he complained. "Why don't you stake out your
own ground and stay put in it? You cut in on every guy's territory.
There ain't any privacy any more since you hit the road. What you got? A
roving commission?"

Donnegan waited for a moment before he answered. And when he spoke his
voice had altered. Indeed, he had remarkable ability to pitch his voice
into the roar of the freight train, and above or beneath it, and give it
a quality such as he pleased.

"I'm following a trail, but not yours," he admitted at length. "I'm
following a trail. I've been at it these two years and nothing has
come of it."

"Who you after?"

"A man with red hair."

"That tells me a lot."

Donnegan refused to explain.

"What you got against him--the color of his hair?"

And Lefty roared contentedly at his own stale jest.

"It's no good," replied Donnegan. "I'll never get on the trail."

Lefty broke in: "You mean to say you've been working two solid years and
all on a trail that you ain't even found?"

The silence answered him in the affirmative.

"Ain't nobody been able to tip you off to him?" went on Lefty, intensely
interested.

"Nobody. You see, he's a hard sort to describe. Red hair, that's all
there was about him for a clue. But if any one ever saw him stripped
they'd remember him by a big blotchy birthmark on his left shoulder."

"Eh?" grunted Lefty Joe.

He added: "What was his name?"

"Don't know. He changed monikers when he took to the road."

"What was he to you?"

"A man I'm going to find."

"No matter where the trail takes you?"

"No matter where."

At this Lefty was seized with unaccountable laughter. He literally
strained his lungs with that Homeric outburst. When he wiped the tears
from his eyes, at length, the shadow on the opposite side of the doorway
had disappeared. He found his companion leaning over him, and this time
he could catch the dull glint of starlight on both hair and eyes.

"What d'you know?" asked Donnegan.

"How do you stand toward this bird with the birthmark and the red hair?"
queried Lefty with caution.

"What d'you know?" insisted Donnegan.

All at once passion shook him; he fastened his grip in the shoulder of
the larger man, and his fingertips worked toward the bone.

"What do you know?" he repeated for the third time, and now there was no
hint of laughter in the hard voice of Lefty.

"You fool, if you follow that trail you'll go to the devil. It was
Rusty Dick; and he's dead!"

His triumphant laughter came again, but Donnegan cut into it.

"Rusty Dick was the one you--killed!"

"Sure. What of it? We fought fair and square."

"Then Rusty wasn't the man I want. The man I want would of eaten two
like you, Lefty."

"What about the birthmark? It sure was on his shoulder; Donnegan."

"Heavens!" whispered Donnegan.

"What's the matter?"

"Rusty Dick," gasped Donnegan. "Yes, it must have been he."

"Sure it was. What did you have against him?"

"It was a matter of blood--between us," stammered Donnegan.

His voice rose in a peculiar manner, so that Lefty shrank involuntarily.

"You killed Rusty?"

"Ask any of the boys. But between you and me, it was the booze that
licked Rusty Dick. I just finished up the job and surprised everybody."

The train was out of the mountains and in a country of scattering hills,
but here it struck a steep grade and settled down to a grind of slow
labor; the rails hummed, and suspense filled the freight car.

"Hey," cried Lefty suddenly. "You fool, you'll do a flop out the door in
about a minute!"

He even reached out to steady the toppling figure, but Donnegan pitched
straight out into the night. Lefty craned his neck from the door,
studying the roadbed, but at that moment the locomotive topped the
little rise and the whole train lurched forward.

"After all," murmured Lefty Joe, "it sounds like Donnegan. Hated a guy
so bad that he hadn't any use for livin' when he heard the other guy was
dead. But I'm never goin' to cross his path again, I hope."




5


But Donnegan had leaped clear of the roadbed, and he struck almost to
the knees in a drift of sand. Otherwise, he might well have broken his
legs with that foolhardy chance. As it was, the fall whirled him over
and over, and by the time he had picked himself up the lighted caboose
of the train was rocking past him. Donnegan watched it grow small in the
distance, and then, when it was only a red, uncertain star far down the
track, he turned to the vast country around him.

The mountains were to his right, not far away, but caught up behind the
shadows so that it seemed a great distance. Like all huge, half-seen
things they seemed in motion toward him. For the rest, he was in bare,
rolling country. The sky line everywhere was clean; there was hardly a
sign of a tree. He knew, by a little reflection, that this must be
cattle country, for the brakie had intimated as much in their talk just
before dusk. Now it was early night, and a wind began to rise, blowing
down the valley with a keen motion and a rapidly lessening temperature,
so that Donnegan saw he must get to a shelter. He could, if necessary,
endure any privation, but his tastes were for luxurious comfort.
Accordingly he considered the landscape with gloomy disapproval. He was
almost inclined to regret his plunge from the lumbering freight train.
Two things had governed him in making that move. First, when he
discovered that the long trail he followed was definitely fruitless, he
was filled with a great desire to cut himself away from his past and
make a new start. Secondly, when he learned that Rusty Dick had been
killed by Joe, he wanted desperately to get the throttle of the latter
under his thumb. If ever a man risked his life to avoid a sin, it was
Donnegan jumping from the train to keep from murder.

He stooped to sight along the ground, for this is the best way at night
and often horizon lights are revealed in this manner. But now Donnegan
saw nothing to serve as a guide. He therefore drew in his belt until it
fitted snug about his gaunt waist, settled his cap firmly, and headed
straight into the wind.

Nothing could have shown his character more distinctly.

When in doubt, head into the wind.

With a jaunty, swinging step he sauntered along, and this time, at
least, his tactics found an early reward. Topping the first large rise
of ground, he saw in the hollow beneath him the outline of a large
building. And as he approached it, the wind clearing a high blowing mist
from the stars, he saw a jumble of outlying houses. Sheds, barns,
corrals--it was the nucleus of a big ranch. It is a maxim that, if you
wish to know a man look at his library and if you wish to know a
rancher, look at his barn. Donnegan made a small detour to the left and
headed for the largest of the barns.

He entered it by the big, sliding door, which stood open; he looked up,
and saw the stars shining through a gap in the roof. And then he stood
quietly for a time, listening to the voices of the wind in the ruin.
Oddly enough, it was pleasant to Donnegan. His own troubles and sorrow
had poured upon him so thickly in the past hour or so that it was
soothing to find evidence of the distress of others. But perhaps this
meant that the entire establishment was deserted.

He left the barn and went toward the house. Not until he was close under
its wall did he come to appreciate its size. It was one of those great,
rambling, two-storied structures which the cattle kings of the past
generation were fond of building. Standing close to it, he heard none of
the intimate sounds of the storm blowing through cracks and broken
walls; no matter into what disrepair the barns had fallen, the house was
still solid; only about the edges of the building the storm kept
murmuring.

Yet there was not a light, neither above nor below. He came to the front
of the house. Still no sign of life. He stood at the door and knocked
loudly upon it, and though, when he tried the knob, he found that the
door was latched, yet no one came in response. He knocked again, and
putting his ear close he heard the echoes walk through the interior of
the building.

After this, the wind rose in sudden strength and deafened him with
rattlings; above him, a shutter was swung open and then crashed to, so
that the opening of the door was a shock of surprise to Donnegan. A dim
light from a source which he could not direct suffused the interior of
the hall; the door itself was worked open a matter of inches and
Donnegan was aware of two keen old eyes glittering out at him. Beyond
this he could distinguish nothing.

"Who are you?" asked a woman's voice. "And what do you want?"

"I'm a stranger, and I want something to eat and a place to sleep. This
house looks as if it might have spare rooms."

"Where d'you come from?"

"Yonder," said Donnegan, with a sufficiently noncommittal gesture.

"What's your name?"

"Donnegan."

"I don't know you. Be off with you, Mr. Donnegan!"

He inserted his foot in the closing crack of the door.

"Tell me where I'm to go?" he persisted.

At this her voice rose in pitch, with squeaky rage.

"I'll raise the house on you!"

"Raise 'em. Call down the man of the house. I can talk to him better
than I can to you; but I won't walk off like this. If you can feed me,
I'll pay you for what I eat."

A shrill cackling--he could not make out the words. And since patience
was not the first of Donnegan's virtues, he seized on the knob of the
door and deliberately pressed it wide. Standing in the hall, now, and
closing the door slowly behind him, he saw a woman with old, keen eyes
shrinking away toward the staircase. She was evidently in great fear,
but there was something infinitely malicious in the manner in which she
kept working her lips soundlessly. She was shrinking, and half turned
away, yet there was a suggestion that in an instant she might whirl and
fly at his face. The door now clicked, and with the windstorm shut away
Donnegan had a queer feeling of being trapped.

"Now call the man of the house," he repeated. "See if I can't come to
terms with him."

"He'd make short work of you if he came," she replied. She broke into a
shrill laughter, and Donnegan thought he had never seen a face so ugly.
"If he came," she said, "you'd rue the day."

"Well, I'll talk to you, then. I'm not asking charity. I want to pay for
what I get."

"This ain't a hotel. You go on down the road. Inside eight miles you'll
come to the town."

"Eight miles!"

"That's nothing for a man to ride."

"Not at all, if I had something to ride."

"You ain't got a horse?"

"No."

"Then how do you come here?"

"I walked."

If this sharpened her suspicions, it sharpened her fear also. She put
one foot on the lowest step of the stairs.

"Be off with you, Mr. Donnegally, or whatever your outlandish name is.
You'll get nothing here. What brings you--"

A door closed and a footstep sounded lightly on the floor above. And
Donnegan, already alert in the strange atmosphere of this house, gave
back a pace so as to get an honest wall behind him. He noted that the
step was quick and small, and preparing himself to meet a wisp of
manhood--which, for that matter, was the type he was most inclined to
fear--Donnegan kept a corner glance upon the old woman at the foot of
the stairs and steadily surveyed the shadows at the head of the rise.

Out of that darkness a foot slipped; not even a boy's foot--a very
child's. The shock of it made Donnegan relax his caution for an instant,
and in that instant she came into the reach of the light. It was a
wretched light at best, for it came from a lamp with smoky chimney
which the old hag carried, and at the raising and lowering of her hand
the flame jumped and died in the throat of the chimney and set the hall
awash with shadows. Falling away to a point of yellow, the lamp allowed
the hall to assume a certain indefinite dignity of height and breadth
and calm proportions; but when the flame rose Donnegan could see the
broken balusters of the balustrade, the carpet, faded past any design
and worn to rattiness, wall paper which had rotted or dried away and
hung in crisp tatters here and there, and on the ceiling an irregular
patch from which the plaster had fallen and exposed the lathwork. But at
the coming of the girl the old woman had turned, and as she did the
flame tossed up in the lamp and Donnegan could see the newcomer
distinctly.

Once before his heart had risen as it rose now. It had been the fag end
of a long party, and Donnegan, rousing from a drunken sleep, staggered
to the window. Leaning there to get the freshness of the night air
against his hot face, he had looked up, and saw the white face of the
moon going up the sky; and a sudden sense of the blackness and loathing
against the city had come upon Donnegan, and the murky color of his own
life; and when he turned away from the window he was sober. And so it
was that he now stared up at the girl. At her breast she held a cloak
together with one hand and the other hand touched the railing of the
stairs. He saw one foot suspended for the next step, as though the sight
of him kept her back in fear. To the miserable soul of Donnegan she
seemed all that was lovely, young, and pure; and her hair, old gold in
the shadow and pale gold where the lamp struck it, was to Donnegan like
a miraculous light about her face.

Indeed, that little pause was a great and awful moment. For considering
that Donnegan, who had gone through his whole life with his eyes ready
either to mock or hate, and who had rarely used his hand except to make
a fist of it; Donnegan who had never, so far as is known, had a
companion; who had asked the world for action, not kindness; this
Donnegan now stood straight with his back against the wall, and poured
out the story of his wayward life to a mere slip of a girl.




6


Even the old woman, whose eyes were sharpened by her habit of looking
constantly for the weaknesses and vices of men, could not guess what was
going on behind the thin, rather ugly face of Donnegan; the girl,
perhaps, may have seen more. For she caught the glitter of his active
eyes even at that distance. The hag began to explain with vicious
gestures that set the light flaring up and down.

"He ain't come from nowhere, Lou," she said. "He ain't going nowhere; he
wants to stay here for the night."

The foot which had been suspended to take the next step was now
withdrawn. Donnegan, remembered at last, whipped off his cap, and at
once the light flared and burned upon his hair. It was a wonderful red;
it shone, and it had a terrible blood tinge so that his face seemed pale
beneath it. There were three things that made up the peculiar dominance
of Donnegan's countenance. The three things were the hair, the uneasy,
bright eyes, and the rather thin, compressed lips. When Donnegan slept
he seemed about to waken from a vigorous dream; when he sat down he
seemed about to leap to his feet; and when he was standing he gave that
impression of a poise which is ready for anything. It was no wonder that
the girl, seeing that face and that alert, aggressive body, shrank a
little on the stairs. Donnegan, that instant, knew that these two women
were really alone in the house as far as fighting men were concerned.

And the fact disturbed him more than a leveled gun would have done. He
went to the foot of the stairs, even past the old woman, and, raising
his head, he spoke to the girl.

"My name's Donnegan. I came over from the railroad--walked. I don't want
to walk that other eight miles unless there's a real need for it. I--"
Why did he pause? "I'll pay for anything I get here."

His voice was not too certain; behind his teeth there was knocking a
desire to cry out to her the truth. "I am Donnegan. Donnegan the tramp.
Donnegan the shiftless. Donnegan the fighter. Donnegan the killer.
Donnegan the penniless, worthless. But for heaven's sake let me stay
until morning and let me look at you--from a distance!"

But, after all, perhaps he did not need to say all these things. His
clothes were rags, upon his face there was a stubble of unshaven red,
which made the pallor about his eyes more pronounced. If the girl had
been half blind she must have felt that here was a man of fire. He saw
her gather the wrap a little closer about her shoulders, and that sign
of fear made him sick at heart.

"Mr. Donnegan," said the girl. "I am sorry. We cannot take you into the
house. Eight miles--"

Did she expect to turn a sinner from the gates of heaven with a mere
phrase? He cast out his hand, and she winced as though he had shaken his
fist at her.

"Are you afraid?" cried Donnegan.

"I don't control the house."

He paused, not that her reply had baffled him, but the mere pleasure of
hearing her speak accounted for it. It was one of those low, light
voices which are apt to have very little range or volume, and which
break and tremble absurdly under any stress of emotion; and often they
become shrill in a higher register; but inside conversational limits, if
such a term may be used, there is no fiber so delightful, so purely
musical. Suppose the word "velvet" applied to a sound. That voice came
soothingly and delightfully upon the ear of Donnegan, from which the
roar and rattle of the empty freight train had not quite departed. He
smiled at her.

"But," he protested, "this is west of the Rockies--and I don't see any
other way out."

The girl, all this time, was studying him intently, a little sadly, he
thought. Now she shook her head, but there was more warmth in her voice.

"I'm sorry. I can't ask you to stay without first consulting my father."

"Go ahead. Ask him."

She raised her hand a little; the thought seemed to bring her to the
verge of trembling, as though he were asking a sacrilege.

"Why not?" he urged.

She did not answer, but, instead, her eyes sought the old, woman, as if
to gain her interposition; she burst instantly into speech.

"Which there's no good talking any more," declared the ancient vixen.
"Are you wanting to make trouble for her with the colonel? Be off, young
man. It ain't the first time I've told you you'd get nowhere in this
house!"

There was no possible answer left to Donnegan, and he did as usual the
surprising thing. He broke into laughter of such clear and ringing
tone--such infectious laughter--that the old woman blinked in the midst
of her wrath as though she were seeing a new man, and he saw the lips of
the girl parted in wonder.

"My father is an invalid," said the girl. "And he lives by strict rules.
I could not break in on him at this time of the evening."

"If that's all"--Donnegan actually began to mount the steps--"I'll go in
and talk to your father myself."

She had retired one pace as he began advancing, but as the import of
what he said became clear to her she was rooted to one position by
astonishment.

"Colonel Macon--my father--" she began. Then: "Do you really wish to see
him?"

The hushed voice made Donnegan smile--it was such a voice as one boy
uses when he asks the other if he really dares enter the pasture of the
red bull. He chuckled again, and this time she smiled, and her eyes were
widened, partly by fear of his purpose and partly from his nearness.
They seemed to be suddenly closer together. As though they were on one
side against a common enemy, and that enemy was her father. The old
woman was cackling sharply from the bottom of the stairs, and then
bobbing in pursuit and calling on Donnegan to come back. At length the
girl raised her hand and silenced her with a gesture.

Donnegan was now hardly a pace away; and he saw that she lived up to all
the promise of that first glance. Yet still she seemed unreal. There is
a quality of the unearthly about a girl's beauty; it is, after all, only
a gay moment between the formlessness of childhood and the hardness of
middle age. This girl was pale, Donnegan saw, and yet she had color. She
had the luster, say, of a white rose, and the same bloom. Lou, the old
woman had called her, and Macon was her father's name. Lou Macon--the
name fitted her, Donnegan thought. For that matter, if her name had been
Sally Smith, Donnegan would probably have thought it beautiful. The
keener a man's mind is and the more he knows about men and women and the
ways of the world, the more apt he is to be intoxicated by a touch of
grace and thoughtfulness; and all these age-long seconds the perfume of
girlhood had been striking up to Donnegan's brain.

She brushed her timidity away and with the same gesture accepted
Donnegan as something more than a dangerous vagrant. She took the lamp
from the hands of the crone and sent her about her business,
disregarding the mutterings and the warnings which trailed behind the
departing form. Now she faced Donnegan, screening the light from her
eyes with a cupped hand and by the same device focusing it upon the face
of Donnegan. He mutely noted the small maneuver and gave her credit; but
for the pleasure of seeing the white of her fingers and the way they
tapered to a pink transparency at the tips, he forgot the poor figure he
must make with his soiled, ragged shirt, his unshaven face, his gaunt
cheeks.

Indeed, he looked so straight at her that in spite of her advantage with
the light she had to avoid his glance.

"I am sorry," said Lou Macon, "and ashamed because we can't take you in.
The only house on the range where you wouldn't be welcome, I know. But
my father leads a very close life; he has set ways. The ways of an
invalid, Mr. Donnegan."

"And you're bothered about speaking to him of me?"

"I'm almost afraid of letting you go in yourself."

"Let me take the risk."

She considered him again for a moment, and then turned with a nod and he
followed her up the stairs into the upper hall. The moment they stepped
into it he heard her clothes flutter and a small gale poured on them. It
was criminal to allow such a building to fall into this ruinous
condition. And a gloomy picture rose in Donnegan's mind of the invalid,
thin-faced, sallow-eyed, white-haired, lying in his bed listening to the
storm and silently gathering bitterness out of the pain of living. Lou
Macon paused again in the hall, close to a door on the right.

"I'm going to send you in to speak to my father," she said gravely.
"First I have to tell you that he's different."

Donnegan replied by looking straight at her, and this time she did not
wince from the glance. Indeed, she seemed to be probing him, searching
with a peculiar hope. What could she expect to find in him? What that
was useful to her? Not once in all his life had such a sense of
impotence descended upon Donnegan. Her father? Bah! Invalid or no
invalid he would handle that fellow, and if the old man had an acrid
temper, Donnegan at will could file his own speech to a point. But the
girl! In the meager hand which held the lamp there was a power which all
the muscles of Donnegan could not compass; and in his weakness he looked
wistfully at her.

"I hope your talk will be pleasant. I hope so." She laid her hand on the
knob of the door and withdrew it hastily; then, summoning great
resolution, she opened the door and showed Donnegan in.

"Father," she said, "this is Mr. Donnegan. He wishes to speak to you."

The door closed behind Donnegan, and hearing that whishing sound which
the door of a heavy safe will make, he looked down at this, and saw that
it was actually inches thick! Once more the sense of being in a trap
descended upon him.




7


He found himself in a large room which, before he could examine a single
feature of it, was effectively curtained from his sight. Straight into
his face shot a current of violent white light that made him blink.
There was the natural recoil, but in Donnegan recoils were generally
protected by several strata of willpower and seldom showed in any
physical action. On the present occasion his first dismay was swiftly
overwhelmed by a cold anger at the insulting trick. This was not the
trick of a helpless invalid; Donnegan could not see a single thing
before him, but he obeyed a very deep instinct and advanced straight
into the current of light.

He was glad to see the light switched away. The comparative darkness
washed across his eyes in a pleasant wave and he was now able to
distinguish a few things in the room. It was, as he had first surmised,
quite large. The ceiling was high; the proportions comfortably spacious;
but what astounded Donnegan was the real elegance of the furnishings.
There was no mistaking the deep, silken texture of the rug upon which he
stepped; the glow of light barely reached the wall, and there showed
faintly in streaks along yellowish hangings. Beside a table which
supported a big reading lamp--gasoline, no doubt, from the intensity of
its light--sat Colonel Macon with a large volume spread across his
knees. Donnegan saw two highlights--fine silver hair that covered the
head of the invalid and a pair of white hands fallen idly upon the
surface of the big book, for if the silver hair suggested age the
smoothly finished hands suggested perennial youth. They were strong,
carefully tended, complacent hands. They suggested to Donnegan a man
sufficient unto himself.

"Mr. Donnegan, I am sorry that I cannot rise to receive you. Now, what
pleasant accident has brought me the favor of this call?"

Donnegan was taken aback again, and this time more strongly than by the
flare of light against his eyes. For in the voice he recognized the
quality of the girl--the same softness, the same velvety richness,
though the pitch was a bass. In the voice of this man there was the same
suggestion that the tone would crack if it were forced either up or
down. With this great difference, one could hardly conceive of a
situation which would push that man's voice beyond its monotone. It
flowed with deadly, all-embracing softness. It clung about one; it
fascinated and baffled the mind of the listener.

But Donnegan was not in the habit of being baffled by voices. Neither
was he a lover of formality. He looked about for a place to sit down,
and immediately discovered that while the invalid sat in an enormous
easy-chair bordered by shelves and supplied with wheels for raising and
lowering the back and for propelling the chair about the room on its
rubber tires, it was the only chair in the room which could make any
pretensions toward comfort. As a matter of fact, aside from this one
immense chair, devoted to the pleasure of the invalid, there was nothing
in the room for his visitors to sit upon except two or three miserable
backless stools.

But Donnegan was not long taken aback. He tucked his cap under his arm,
bowed profoundly in honor of the colonel's compliments, and brought one
of the stools to a place where it was no nearer the rather ominous
circle of the lamplight than was the invalid himself. With his eyes
accustomed to the new light, Donnegan could now take better stock of his
host. He saw a rather handsome face, with eyes exceedingly blue, young,
and active; but the features of Macon as well as his body were blurred
and obscured by a great fatness. He was truly a prodigious man, and one
could understand the stoutness with which the invalid chair was made.
His great wrist dimpled like the wrist of a healthy baby, and his face
was so enlarged with superfluous flesh that the lower part of it quite
dwarfed the upper. He seemed, at first glance, a man with a low forehead
and bright, careless eyes and a body made immobile by flesh and
sickness. A man whose spirits despised and defied pain. Yet a second
glance showed that the forehead was, after all, a nobly proportioned
one, and for all the bulk of that figure, for all the cripple-chair,
Donnegan would not have been surprised to see the bulk spring lightly
out of the chair to meet him.

For his own part, sitting back on the stool with his cap tucked under
his arm and his hands folded about one knee, he met the faint, cold
smile of the colonel with a broad grin of his own.

"I can put it in a nutshell," said Donnegan. "I was tired; dead beat;
needed a handout, and rapped at your door. Along comes a mystery in the
shape of an ugly-looking woman and opens the door to me. Tries to shut
me out; I decided to come in. She insists on keeping me outside; all at
once I see that I have to get into the house. I am brought in; your
daughter tries to steer me off, sees that the job is more than she can
get away with, and shelves me off upon you. And that, Colonel Macon, is
the pleasant accident which brings you the favor of this call."

It would have been a speech both stupid and pert in the mouth of
another; but Donnegan knew how to flavor words with a touch of mockery
of himself as well as another. There were two manners in which this
speech could have been received--with a wink or with a smile. But it
would have been impossible to hear it and grow frigid. As for the
colonel, he smiled.

It was a tricky smile, however, as Donnegan felt. It spread easily upon
that vast face and again went out and left all to the dominion of the
cold, bright eyes.

"A case of curiosity," commented the colonel.

"A case of hunger," said Donnegan.

"My dear Mr. Donnegan, put it that way if you wish!"

"And a case of blankets needed for one night."

"Really? Have you ventured into such a country as this without any
equipment?"

"Outside of my purse, my equipment is of the invisible kind."

"Wits," suggested the colonel.

"Thank you."

"Not at all. You hinted at it yourself."

"However, a hint is harder to take than to make."

The colonel raised his faultless right hand--and oddly enough his great
corpulence did not extend in the slightest degree to his hand, but
stopped short at the wrists--and stroked his immense chin. His skin was
like Lou Macon's, except that in place of the white-flower bloom his was
a parchment, dead pallor. He lowered his hand with the same slow
precision and folded it with the other, all the time probing Donnegan
with his difficult eyes.

"Unfortunately--most unfortunately, it is impossible for me to
accommodate you, Mr. Donnegan."

The reply was not flippant, but quick. "Not at all. I am the easiest
person in the world to accommodate."

The big man smiled sadly.

"My fortune has fallen upon evil days, sir. It is no longer what it was.
There are in this house three habitable rooms; this one; my daughter's
apartment; the kitchen where old Haggie sleeps. Otherwise you are in a
rat trap of a place."

He shook his head, a slow, decisive motion.

"A spare blanket," said Donnegan, "will be enough."

There was another sigh and another shake of the head.

"Even a corner of a rug to roll up in will do perfectly."

"You see, it is impossible for me to entertain you."

"Bare boards will do well enough for me, Colonel Macon. And if I have a
piece of bread, a plate of cold beans--anything--I can entertain
myself."

"I am sorry to see you so compliant, Mr. Donnegan, because that makes my
refusal seem the more unkind. But I cannot have you sleeping on the bare
floor. Not on such a night. Pneumonia comes on one like a cat in the
dark in such weather. It is really impossible to keep you here, sir."

"H'm-m," said Donnegan. He began to feel that he was stumped, and it was
a most unusual feeling for him.

"Besides, for a young fellow like you, with your agility, what is eight
miles? Walk down the road and you will come to a place where you will be
made at home and fed like a king."

"Eight miles, that's not much! But on such a night as this?"

There was a faint glint in the eyes of the colonel; was he not
sharpening his wits for his contest of words, and enjoying it?

"The wind will be at your back and buoy your steps. It will shorten the
eight miles to four."

Very definitely Donnegan felt that the other was reading him. What was
it that he saw as he turned the pages?

"There is one thing you fail to take into your accounting."

"Ah?"

"I have an irresistible aversion to walking."

"Ah?" repeated Macon.

"Or exercise in any form."

"Then you are unfortunate to be in this country without a horse."

"Unfortunate, perhaps, but the fact is that I'm here. Very sorry to
trouble you, though, colonel."

"I am rarely troubled," said the colonel coldly. "And since I have no
means of accommodation, the laws of hospitality rest light on my
shoulders."

"Yet I have an odd thought," replied Donnegan.

"Well? You have expressed a number already, it seems to me."

"It's this: that you've already made up your mind to keep me here."




8


The colonel stiffened in his chair, and under his bulk even those
ponderous timbers quaked a little. Once more Donnegan gained an
impression of chained activity ready to rise to any emergency. The
colonel's jaw set and the last vestige of the smile left his eyes. Yet
it was not anger that showed in its place. Instead, it was rather a
hungry searching. He looked keenly into the face and the soul of
Donnegan as a searchlight sweeps over waters by night.

"You are a mind reader, Mr. Donnegan."

"No more of a mind reader than a Chinaman is."

"Ah, they are great readers of mind, my friend."

Donnegan grinned, and at this the colonel frowned.

"A great and mysterious people, sir. I keep evidences of them always
about me. Look!"

He swept the shaft of the reading light up and it fell upon a red vase
against the yellow hangings. Even Donnegan's inexperienced eye read a
price into that shimmering vase.

"Queer color," he said.

"Dusty claret. Ah, they have the only names for their colors. Think!
Peach bloom--liquid dawn--ripe cherry--oil green--green of powdered
tea--blue of the sky after rain--what names for color! What other land
possesses such a tongue that goes straight to the heart!"

The colonel waved his faultless hands and then dropped them back upon
the book with the tenderness of a benediction.

"And their terms for texture--pear's rind--lime peel--millet seed! Do
not scoff at China, Mr. Donnegan. She is the fairy godmother, and we are
the poor children."

He changed the direction of the light; Donnegan watched him, fascinated.

"But what convinced you that I wished to keep you here?"

"To amuse you, Colonel Macon."

The colonel exposed gleaming white teeth and laughed in that soft,
smooth-flowing voice.

"Amuse me? For fifteen years I have sat in this room and amused myself
by taking in what I would and shutting out the rest of the world. I have
made the walls thick and padded them to keep out all sound. You observe
that there is no evidence here of the storm that is going on tonight.
Amuse me? Indeed!"

And Donnegan thought of Lou Macon in her old, drab dress, huddling the
poor cloak around her shoulders to keep out the cold, while her father
lounged here in luxury. He could gladly have buried his lean fingers in
that fat throat. From the first he had had an aversion to this man.

"Very well, I shall go. It has been a pleasant chat, colonel."

"Very pleasant. And thank you. But before you go, taste this whisky. It
will help you when you enter the wind."

He opened a cabinet in the side of the chair and brought out a black
bottle and a pair of glasses and put them on the broad arm of the chair.
Donnegan sauntered back.

"You see," he murmured, "you will not let me go."

At this the colonel raised his head suddenly and glared into the eyes of
his guest, and yet so perfect was his muscular and nerve control that he
did not interrupt the thin stream of amber which trickled into one of
the glasses. Looking down again, he finished pouring the drinks. They
pledged each other with a motion, and drank. It was very old, very oily.
And Donnegan smiled as he put down the empty glass.

"Sit down," said the colonel in a new voice.

Donnegan obeyed.

"Fate," went on the colonel, "rules our lives. We give our honest
endeavors, but the deciding touch is the hand of Fate."

He garnished this absurd truism with a wave of his hand so solemn that
Donnegan was chilled; as though the fat man were actually conversant
with the Three Sisters.

"Fate has brought you to me; therefore, I intend to keep you."

"Here?"

"In my service. I am about to place a great mission and a great trust in
your hands."

"In the hands of a man you know nothing about?"

"I know you as if I had raised you."

Donnegan smiled, and shaking his head, the red hair flashed and
shimmered.

"As long as there is no work attached to the mission, it may be
agreeable to me."

"But there is work."

"Then the contract is broken before it is made."

"You are rash. But I had rather begin with a dissent and then work
upward."

Donnegan waited.

"To balance against work--"

"Excuse me. Nothing balances against work for me."

"To balance against work," continued the colonel, raising a white hand
and by that gesture crushing the protest of Donnegan, "there is a great
reward."

"Colonel Macon, I have never worked for money before and I shall not
work for it now."

"You trouble me with interruptions. Who mentioned money? You shall not
have a penny!"

"No?"

"The reward shall grow out of the work."

"And the work?"

"Is fighting."

At this Donnegan narrowed his eyes and searched the fat man thoroughly.
It sounded like the talk of a charlatan, and yet there was a crispness
to these sentences that made him suspect something underneath. For that
matter, in certain districts his name and his career were known. He had
never dreamed that that reputation could have come within a thousand
miles of this part of the mountain desert.

"You should have told me in the first place," he said with some anger,
"that you knew me."

"Mr. Donnegan, upon my honor, I never heard your name before my daughter
uttered it."

Donnegan waited soberly.

"I despise charlatanry as much as the next man. You shall see the steps
by which I judged you. When you entered the room I threw a strong light
upon you. You did not blanch; you immediately walked straight into the
shaft of light although you could not see a foot before you."

"And that proved?"

"A combative instinct, and coolness; not the sort of brute
vindictiveness that fights for a rage, for a cool-minded love of
conflict. Is that clear?"

Donnegan shrugged his shoulders.

"And above all, I need a fighter. Then I watched your eyes and your
hands. The first were direct and yet they were alert. And your hands
were perfectly steady."

"Qualifications for a fighter, eh?"

"Do you wish further proof?"

"Well?"

"What of the fight to the death which you went through this same night?"

Donnegan started. It was a small movement, that flinching, and he
covered it by continuing the upward gesture of his hand to his coat; he
drew out tobacco and cigarette papers and commenced to roll his smoke.
Looking up, he saw that the eyes of Colonel Macon were smiling, although
his face was grave.

A glint of understanding passed between the two men, but not a spoken
word.

"I assure you, there was no death tonight," said Donnegan at length.

"Tush! Of course not! But the tear on the shoulder of your coat--ah,
that is too smooth edged for a tear, too long for the bite of a
scissors. Am I right? Tush! Not a word!"

The colonel beamed with an almost tender pride, and Donnegan, knowing
that the fat man looked upon him as a murderer, newly come from a
death, considered the beaming face and thought many things in silence.

"So it was easy to see that in coolness, courage, fighting instinct,
skill, you were probably what I want. Yet something more than all these
qualifications is necessary for the task which lies ahead of you."

"You pile up the bad features, eh?"

"To entice you, Donnegan. For one man, paint a rosy beginning, and once
under way he will manage the hard parts. For you, show you the hard
shell and you will trust it contains the choice flesh. I was saying,
that I waited to see other qualities in you; qualities of the judgment.
And suddenly you flashed upon me a single glance; I felt it clash
against my willpower. I felt your look go past my guard like a rapier
slipping around my blade. I, Colonel Macon, was for the first time
outfaced, out-maneuvered. I admit it, for I rejoice in meeting such a
man. And the next instant you told me that I should keep you here out of
my own wish! Admirable!"

The admiration of the colonel, indeed, almost overwhelmed Donnegan, but
he saw that in spite of the genial smile, the face suffused with warmth,
the colonel was watching him every instant, flinty-eyed. Donnegan did as
he had done on the stairs; he burst into laughter.

When he had done, the colonel was leaning forward in his chair with his
fingers interlacing, examining his guest from beneath somber brows. As
he sat lurched forward he gave a terrible impression of that reserved
energy which Donnegan had sensed before.

"Donnegan," said the colonel, "I shall talk no more nonsense to you. You
are a terrible fellow!"

And Donnegan knew that, for the first time in the colonel's life, he was
meeting another man upon equal ground.




9


In a way, it was an awful tribute, for one great fact grew upon him:
that the colonel represented almost perfectly the power of absolute
evil. Donnegan was not a squeamish sort, but the fat, smiling face of
Macon filled him with unutterable aversion. A dozen times he would have
left the room, but a silken thread held him back, the thought of Lou.

"I shall be terse and entirely frank," said the colonel, and at once
Donnegan reared triple guard and balanced himself for attack or defense.

"Between you and me," went on the fat man, "deceptive words are folly. A
waste of energy." He flushed a little. "You are, I believe, the first
man who has ever laughed at me." The click of his teeth as he snapped
them on this sentence seemed to promise that he should also be the last.

"So I tear away the veils which made me ridiculous, I grant you.
Donnegan, we have met each other just in time."

"True," said Donnegan, "you have a task for me that promises a lot of
fighting; and in return I get lodgings for the night."

"Wrong, wrong! I offer you much more. I offer you a career of action in
which you may forget the great sorrow which has fallen upon you: and in
the battles which lie before you, you will find oblivion for the sad
past which lies behind you."

Here Donnegan sprang to his feet with his hand caught at his breast; and
he stood quivering, in an agony. Pain worked him as anger would do, and,
his slender frame swelling, his muscles taut, he stood like a panther
enduring the torture because knows it is folly to attempt to escape.

"You are a human devil!" Donnegan said at last, and sank back upon his
stool. For a moment he was overcome, his head falling upon his breast,
and even when he looked up his face was terribly pale, and his eyes
dull. His expression, however, cleared swiftly, and aside from the
perspiration which shone on his forehead it would have been impossible
ten seconds later to discover that the blow of the colonel had fallen
upon him.

All of this the colonel had observed and noted with grim satisfaction.
Not once did he speak until he saw that all was well.

"I am sorry," he said at length in a voice almost as delicate as the
voice of Lou Macon. "I am sorry, but you forced me to say more than I
wished to say."

Donnegan brushed the apology aside.

His voice became low and hurried. "Let us get on in the matter. I am
eager to learn from you, colonel."

"Very well. Since it seems that there is a place for both our interests
in this matter, I shall run on in my tale and make it, as I promised you
before, absolutely frank and curt. I shall not descend into small
details. I shall give you a main sketch of the high points; for all men
of mind are apt to be confused by the face of a thing, whereas the heart
of it is perfectly clear to them."

He settled into his narrative.

"You have heard of The Corner? No? Well, that is not strange; but a few
weeks ago gold was found in the sands where the valleys of Young Muddy
and Christobel Rivers join. The Corner is a long, wide triangle of sand,
and the sand is filled with a gold deposit brought down from the
headwaters of both rivers and precipitated here, where one current meets
the other and reduces the resultant stream to sluggishness. The sands
are rich--very rich!"

He had become a trifle flushed as he talked, and now, perhaps to cover
his emotion, he carefully selected a cigarette from the humidor beside
him and lighted it without haste before he spoke another word.

"Long ago I prospected over that valley; a few weeks ago it was brought
to my attention again. I determined to stake some claims and work them.
But I could not go myself. I had to send a trustworthy man. Whom should
I select? There was only one possible. Jack Landis is my ward. A dozen
years ago his parents died and they sent him to my care, for my fortune
was then comfortable. I raised him with as much tenderness as I could
have shown my own son; I lavished on him the affection and--"

Here Donnegan coughed lightly; the fat man paused, and observing that
this hypocrisy did not draw the veil over the bright eyes of his guest,
he continued: "In a word, I made him one of my family. And when the need
for a man came I turned to him. He is young, strong, active, able to
take care of himself."

At this Donnegan pricked his ears.

"He went, accordingly, to The Corner and staked the claims and filed
them as I directed. I was right. There was gold. Much gold. It panned
out in nuggets."

He made an indescribable gesture, and through his strong fingers
Donnegan had a vision of yellow gold pouring.

"But there is seldom a discovery of importance claimed by one man alone.
This was no exception. A villain named William Lester, known as a
scoundrel over the length and breadth of the cattle country, claimed
that he had made the discovery first. He even went so far as to claim
that I had obtained my information from him and he tried to jump the
claims staked by Jack Landis, whereupon Jack, very properly, shot Lester
down. Not dead, unfortunately, but slightly wounded.

"In the meantime the rush for The Corner started. In a week there was a
village; in a fortnight there was a town; in a month The Corner had
become the talk of the ranges. Jack Landis found in the claims a mint.
He sent me back a mere souvenir."

The fat man produced from his vest pocket a little chunk of yellow and
with a dexterous motion whipped it at Donnegan. It was done so suddenly,
so unexpectedly that the wanderer was well-nigh taken by surprise. But
his hand flashed up and caught the metal before it struck his face. He
found in the palm of his hand a nugget weighing perhaps five ounces,
and he flicked it back to the colonel.

"He sent me the souvenir, but that was all. Since that time I have
waited. Nothing has come. I sent for word, and I learned that Jack
Landis had betrayed his trust, fallen in love with some undesirable
woman of the mining camp, denied my claim to any of the gold to which I
had sent him. Unpleasant news? Yes. Ungrateful boy? Yes. But my mind is
hardened against adversity.

"Yet this blow struck me close to the heart. Because Landis is engaged
to marry my daughter, Lou. At first I could hardly believe in his
disaffection. But the truth has at length been borne home to me. The
scoundrel has abandoned both Lou and me!"

Donnegan repeated slowly: "Your daughter loves this chap?"

The colonel allowed his glance to narrow, and he could do this the more
safely because at this moment Donnegan's eyes were wandering into the
distance. In that unguarded second Donnegan was defenseless and the
colonel read something that set him beaming.

"She loves him, of course," he said, "and he is breaking her heart with
his selfishness."

"He is breaking her heart?" echoed Donnegan.

The colonel raised his hand and stroked his enormous chin. Decidedly he
believed that things were getting on very well.

"This is the position," he declared. "Jack Landis was threatened by the
wretch Lester, and shot him down. But Lester was not single-handed. He
belongs to a wild crew, led by a mysterious fellow of whom no one knows
very much, a deadly fighter, it is said, and a keen organizer and
handler of men. Red-haired, wild, smooth. A bundle of contradictions.
They call him Lord Nick because he has the pride of a nobleman and the
cunning of the devil. He has gathered a few chosen spirits and cool
fighters--the Pedlar, Joe Rix, Harry Masters--all celebrated names in
the cattle country.

"They worship Lord Nick partly because he is a genius of crime and
partly because he understands how to guide them so that they may rob and
even kill with impunity. His peculiarity is his ability to keep within
the bounds of the law. If he commits a robbery he always first
establishes marvelous alibis and throws the blame toward someone else;
if it is the case of a killing, it is always the other man who is the
aggressor. He has been before a jury half a dozen times, but the devil
knows the law and pleads his own case with a tongue that twists the
hearts out of the stupid jurors. You see? No common man. And this is the
leader of the group of which Lester is one of the most debased members.
He had no sooner been shot than Lord Nick himself appeared. He had his
followers with him. He saw Jack Landis, threatened him with death, and
made Jack swear that he would hand over half of the profits of the mines
to the gang--of which, I suppose, Lester gets his due proportion. At the
same time, Lord Nick attempted to persuade Jack that I, his adopted
father, you might say, was really in the wrong, and that I had stolen
the claims from this wretched Lester!"

He waved this disgusting accusation into a mist and laughed with hateful
softness.

"The result is this: Jack Landis draws a vast revenue from the mines.
Half of it he turns over to Lord Nick, and Lord Nick in return gives him
absolute freedom and backing in the camp, where he is, and probably will
continue the dominant factor. As for the other half, Landis spends it on
this woman with whom he has become infatuated. And not a penny comes
through to me!"

Colonel Macon leaned back in his chair and his eyes became fixed upon a
great distance. He smiled, and the blood turned cold in the veins of
Donnegan.

"Of course this adventuress, this Nelly Lebrun, plays hand in glove with
Lord Nick and his troupe; unquestionably she shares her spoils, so that
nine-tenths of the revenue from the mines is really flowing back through
the hands of Lord Nick and Jack Landis has become a silly figurehead. He
struts about the streets of The Corner as a great mine owner, and with
the power of Lord Nick behind him, not one of the people of the gambling
houses and dance halls dares cross him. So that Jack has come to
consider himself a great man. Is it clear?"

Donnegan had not yet drawn his gaze entirely back from the distance.

"This is the possible solution," went on the colonel. "Jack Landis must
be drawn away from the influence of this Nelly Lebrun. He must be
brought back to us and shown his folly both as regards the adventuress
and Lord Nick; for so long as Nelly has a hold on him, just so long
Lord Nick will have his hand in Jack's pocket. You see how beautifully
their plans and their work dovetail? How, therefore, am I to draw him
from Nelly? There is only one way: send my daughter to the camp--send
Lou to The Corner and let one glimpse of her beauty turn the shabby
prettiness of this woman to a shadow! Lou is my last hope!"

At this Donnegan wakened. His sneer was not a pleasant thing to see.

"Send her to a new mining camp. Colonel Macon, you have the gambling
spirit; you are willing to take great chances!"

"So! So!" murmured the colonel, a little taken aback. "But I should
never send her except with an adequate protector."

"An adequate protector even against these celebrated gunmen who run the
camp as you have already admitted?"

"An adequate protector--you are the man!"

Donnegan shivered.

"I? I take your daughter to the camp and play her against Nelly Lebrun
to win back Jack Landis? Is that the scheme?"

"It is."

"Ah," murmured Donnegan. And he got up and began to walk the room,
white-faced; the colonel watched him in a silent agony of anxiety.

"She truly loves this Landis?" asked Donnegan, swallowing.

"A love that has grown out of their long intimacy together since they
were children."

"Bah! Calf love! Let the fellow go and she will forget him. Hearts are
not broken in these days by disappointments in love affairs."

The colonel writhed in his chair.

"But Lou--you do not know her heart!" he suggested. "If you looked
closely at her you would have seen that she is pale. She does not
suspect the truth, but I think she is wasting away because Jack hasn't
written for weeks."

He saw Donnegan wince under the whip.

"It is true," murmured the wanderer. "She is not like others, heaven
knows!" He turned. "And what if I fail to bring over Jack Landis with
the sight of Lou?"

The colonel relaxed; the great crisis was past and Donnegan would
undertake the journey.

"In that case, my dear lad, there is an expedient so simple that you
astonish me by not perceiving it. If there is no way to wean Landis away
from the woman, then get him alone and shoot him through the heart. In
that way you remove from the life of Lou a man unworthy of her and you
also make the mines come to the heir of Jack Landis--namely, myself. And
in the latter case, Mr. Donnegan, be sure--oh, be sure that I should not
forget who brought the mines into my hands!"




10


Fifty miles over any sort of going is a stiff march. Fifty miles uphill
and down and mostly over districts where there was only a rough cow path
in lieu of a road made a prodigious day's work; and certainly it was an
almost incredible feat for one who professed to hate work with a
consuming passion and who had looked upon an eight-mile jaunt the night
before as an insuperable burden. Yet such was the distance which
Donnegan had covered, and now he drove the pack mule out on the shoulder
of the hill in full view of The Corner with the triangle of the Young
Muddy and Christobel Rivers embracing the little town. Even the gaunt,
leggy mule was tired to the dropping point, and the tough buckskin which
trailed up behind went with downward head. When Louise Macon turned to
him, he had reached the point where he swung his head around first and
then grudgingly followed the movement with his body. The girl was tired,
also, in spite of the fact that she had covered every inch of the
distance in the saddle. There was that violet shade of weariness under
her eyes and her shoulders slumped forward. Only Donnegan, the hater of
labor, was fresh.

They had started in the first dusk of the coming day; it was now the
yellow time of the slant afternoon sunlight; between these two points
there had been a body of steady plodding. The girl had looked askance at
that gaunt form of Donnegan's when they began; but before three hours,
seeing that the spring never left his step nor the swinging rhythm his
stride, she began to wonder. This afternoon, nothing he did could have
surprised her. From the moment he entered the house the night before he
had been a mystery. Till her death day she would not forget the fire
with which he had stared up at her from the foot of the stairs. But when
he came out of her father's room--not cowed and whipped as most men left
it--he had looked at her with a veiled glance, and since that moment
there had always been a mist of indifference over his eyes when he
looked at her.

In the beginning of that day's march all she knew was that her father
trusted her to this stranger, Donnegan, to take her to The Corner, where
he was to find Jack Landis and bring Jack back to his old allegiance and
find what he was doing with his time and his money. It was a quite
natural proceeding, for Jack was a wild sort, and he was probably
gambling away all the gold that was dug in his mines. It was perfectly
natural throughout, except that she should have been trusted so entirely
to a stranger. That was a remarkable thing, but, then, her father was a
remarkable man, and it was not the first time that his actions had been
inscrutable, whether concerning her or the affairs of other people. She
had heard men come into their house cursing Colonel Macon with death in
their faces; she had seen them sneak out after a soft-voiced interview
and never appear again. In her eyes, her father was invincible,
all-powerful. When she thought of superlatives, she thought of him. Her
conception of mystery was the smile of the colonel, and her conception
of tenderness was bounded by the gentle voice of the same man.
Therefore, it was entirely sufficient to her that the colonel had said:
"Go, and trust everything to Donnegan. He has the power to command you
and you must obey--until Jack comes back to you."

That was odd, for, as far as she knew, Jack had never left her. But she
had early discarded any will to question her father. Curiosity was a
thing which the fat man hated above all else.

Therefore, it was really not strange to her that throughout the journey
her guide did not speak half a dozen words to her. Once or twice when
she attempted to open the conversation he had replied with crushing
monosyllables, and there was an end. For the rest, he was always
swinging down the trail ahead of her at a steady, unchanging, rapid
stride. Uphill and down it never varied. And so they came out upon the
shoulder of the hill and saw the storm center of The Corner. They were
in the hills behind the town; two miles would bring them into it. And
now Donnegan came back to her from the mule. He took off his hat and
shook the dust away; he brushed a hand across his face. He was still
unshaven. The red stubble made him hideous, and the dust and
perspiration covered his face as with a mask. Only his eyes were rimmed
with white skin.

"You'd better get off the horse, here," said Donnegan.

He held her stirrup, and she obeyed without a word.

"Sit down."

She sat down on the flat-topped boulder which he designated, and,
looking up, observed the first sign of emotion in his face. He was
frowning, and his face was drawn a little.

"You are tired," he stated.

"A little."

"You are tired," said the wanderer in a tone that implied dislike of any
denial. Therefore she made no answer. "I'm going down into the town to
look things over. I don't want to parade you through the streets until I
know where Landis is to be found and how he'll receive you. The Corner
is a wild town; you understand?"

"Yes," she said blankly, and noted nervously that the reply did not
please him. He actually scowled at her.

"You'll be all right here. I'll leave the pack mule with you; if
anything should happen--but nothing is going to happen, I'll be back in
an hour or so. There's a pool of water. You can get a cold drink there
and wash up if you want to while I'm gone. But don't go to sleep!"

"Why not?"

"A place like this is sure to have a lot of stragglers hunting around
it. Bad characters. You understand?"

She could not understand why he should make a mystery of it; but then,
he was almost as strange as her father. His careful English and his
ragged clothes were typical of him inside and out.

"You have a gun there in your holster. Can you use it?"

"Yes."

"Try it."

It was a thirty-two, a woman's light weapon. She took it out and
balanced it in her hand.

"The blue rock down the hillside. Let me see you chip it."

Her hand went up, and without pausing to sight along the barrel, she
fired; fire flew from the rock, and there appeared a white, small scar.
Donnegan sighed with relief.

"If you squeezed the butt rather than pulled the trigger," he commented,
"you would have made a bull's-eye that time. Now, I don't mean that in
any likelihood you'll have to defend yourself. I simply want you to be
aware that there's plenty of trouble around The Corner."

"Yes," said the girl.

"You're not afraid?"

"Oh, no."

Donnegan settled his hat a little more firmly upon his head. He had been
on the verge of attributing her gentleness to a blank, stupid mind; he
began to realize that there was metal under the surface. He felt that
some of the qualities of the father were echoed faintly, and at a
distance, in the child. In a way, she made him think of an unawakened
creature. When she was roused, if the time ever came, it might be that
her eye could become a thing alternately of fire and ice, and her voice
might carry with a ring.

"This business has to be gotten through quickly," he went on. "One
meeting with Jack Landis will be enough."

She wondered why he set his jaw when he said this, but he was wondering
how deeply the colonel's ward had fallen into the clutches of Nelly
Lebrun. If that first meeting did not bring Landis to his senses, what
followed? One of two things. Either the girl must stay on in The Corner
and try her hand with her fiancé again, or else the final brutal
suggestion of the colonel must be followed; he must kill Landis. It was
a cold-blooded suggestion, but Donnegan was a cold-blooded man. As he
looked at the girl, where she sat on the boulder, he knew definitely,
first and last, that he loved her, and that he would never again love
any other woman. Every instinct drew him toward the necessity of
destroying Landis. There was his stumbling block. But what if she truly
loved Landis?

He would have to wait in order to find that out. And as he stood there
with the sun shining on the red stubble on his face he made a resolution
the more profound because it was formed in silence: if she truly loved
Landis he would serve her hand and foot until she had her will.

But all he said was simply: "I shall be back before it's dark."

"I shall be comfortable here," replied the girl, and smiled farewell at
him.

And while Donnegan went down the slope full of darkness he thought of
that smile.

The Corner spread more clearly before him with every step he made. It
was a type of the gold-rush town. Of course most of the dwellings were
tents--dog tents many of them; but there was a surprising sprinkling of
wooden shacks, some of them of considerable size. Beginning at the very
edge of the town and spread over the sand flats were the mines and the
black sprinkling of laborers. And the town itself was roughly jumbled
around one street. Over to the left the main road into The Corner
crossed the wide, shallow ford of the Young Muddy River and up this road
he saw half a dozen wagons coming, wagons of all sizes; but nothing went
out of The Corner. People who came stayed there, it seemed.

He dropped over the lower hills, and the voice of the gold town rose to
him. It was a murmur like that of an army preparing for battle. Now and
then a blast exploded, for what purpose he could not imagine in this
school of mining. But as a rule the sounds were subdued by the distance.
He caught the muttering of many voices, in which laughter and shouts
were brought to the level of a whisper at close hand; and through all
this there was a persistent clangor of metallic sounds. No doubt from
the blacksmith shops where picks and other implements were made or
sharpened and all sorts of repairing carried on. But the predominant
tone of the voice of The Corner was this persistent ringing of metal. It
suggested to Donnegan that here was a town filled with men of iron and
all the gentler parts of their natures forgotten. An odd place to bring
such a woman as Lou Macon, surely!

He reached the level, and entered the town.




11


Hunting for news, he went naturally to the news emporium which took the
place of the daily paper--namely, he went to the saloons. But on the way
he ran through a liberal cross-section of The Corner's populace. First
of all, the tents and the ruder shacks. He saw little sheet-iron stoves
with the tin dishes piled, unwashed, upon the tops of them when the
miners rushed back to their work; broken handles of picks and shovels;
worn-out shirts and overalls lay where they had been tossed; here was a
flat strip of canvas supported by four four-foot poles and without
shelter at the sides, and the belongings of one careless miner tumbled
beneath this miserable shelter; another man had striven for some
semblance of a home and he had framed a five-foot walk leading up to the
closed flap of his tent with stones of a regular size. But nowhere was
there a sign of life, and would not be until semidarkness brought the
unwilling workers back to the tents.

Out of this district he passed quickly onto the main street, and here
there was a different atmosphere. The first thing he saw was a man
dressed as a cowpuncher from belt to spurs--spurs on a miner--but above
the waist he blossomed in a frock coat and a silk hat. Around the coat
he had fastened his belt, and the shirt beneath the coat was common
flannel, open at the throat. He walked, or rather staggered, on the arm
of an equally strange companion who was arrayed in a white silk shirt,
white flannel trousers, white dancing pumps, and a vast sombrero! But as
if this was not sufficient protection for his head, he carried a parasol
of the most brilliant green silk and twirled it above his head. The two
held a wavering course and went blindly past Donnegan.

It was sufficiently clear that the storekeeper had followed the gold.

He noted a cowboy sitting in his saddle while he rolled a cigarette.
Obviously he had come in to look things over rather than to share in the
mining, and he made the one sane, critical note in the carnival of noise
and color. Donnegan began to pass stores. There was the jeweler's; the
gent's furnishing; a real estate office--what could real estate be doing
on the Young Muddy's desert? Here was the pawnshop, the windows of which
were already packed. The blacksmith had a great establishment, and the
roar of the anvils never died away; feed and grain and a dozen
lunch-counter restaurants. All this had come to The Corner within six
weeks.

Liquor seemed to be plentiful, too. In the entire length of the street
he hardly saw a sober man, except the cowboy. Half a dozen in one group
pitched silver dollars at a mark. But he was in the saloon district now,
and dominant among the rest was the big, unpainted front of a building
before which hung an enormous sign:

LEBRUN'S JOY EMPORIUM

Donnegan turned in under the sign.

It was one big room. The bar stretched completely around two sides of
it. The floor was dirt, but packed to the hardness of wood. The low roof
was supported by a scattering of wooden pillars, and across the floor
the gaming tables were spread. At that vast bar not ten men were
drinking now; at the crowding tables there were not half a dozen
players; yet behind the bar stood a dozen tenders ready to meet the
evening rush from the mines. And at the tables waited an equal number of
the professional gamblers of the house.

From the door Donnegan observed these things with one sweeping glance,
and then proceeded to transform himself. One jerk at the visor of his
cap brought it down over his eyes and covered his face with shadow; a
single shrug bunched the ragged coat high around his shoulders, and the
shoulders themselves he allowed to drop forward. With his hands in his
pockets he glided slowly across the room toward the bar, for all the
world a picture of the guttersnipe who had been kicked from pillar to
post until self-respect is dead in him. And pausing in his advance, he
leaned against one of the pillars and looked hungrily toward the bar.

He was immediately hailed from behind the bar with: "Hey, you. No tramps
in here. Pay and stay in Lebrun's!"

The command brought an immediate protest. A big fellow stepped from the
bar, his sombrero pushed to the back of his head, his shirt sleeves
rolled to the elbow away from vast hairy forearms. One of his long arms
swept out and brought Donnegan to the bar.

"I ain't no prophet," declared the giant, "but I can spot a man that's
dry. What'll you have, bud?" And to the bartender he added: "Leave him
be, pardner, unless you're all set for considerable noise in here."

"Long as his drinks are paid for," muttered the bartender, "here he
stays. But these floaters do make me tired!"

He jabbed the bottle across the bar at Donnegan and spun a glass noisily
at him, and the "floater" observed the angry bartender with a frightened
side glance, and then poured his drink gingerly. When the glass was half
full he hesitated and sought the face of the bartender again, for
permission to go on.

"Fill her up!" commanded the giant. "Fill her up, lad, and drink
hearty."

"I never yet," observed the bartender darkly, "seen a beggar that wasn't
a hog."

At this Donnegan's protector shifted his belt so that the holster came a
little more forward on his thigh.

"Son," he said, "how long you been in these parts?"

"Long enough," declared the other, and lowered his black brows. "Long
enough to be sick of it."

"Maybe, maybe," returned the cowpuncher-miner, "meantime you tie to
this. We got queer ways out here. When a gent drinks with us he's our
friend. This lad here is my pardner, just now. If I was him I would of
knocked your head off before now for what you've said--"

"I don't want no trouble," Donnegan said whiningly.

At this the bartender chuckled, and the miner showed his teeth in his
disgust.

"Every gent has got his own way," he said sourly. "But while you drink
with Hal Stern you drink with your chin up, bud. And don't forget it.
And them that tries to run over you got to run over me."

Saying this, he laid his large left hand on the bar and leaned a little
toward the bartender, but his right hand remained hanging loosely at his
side. It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed. And the bartender,
having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlily
away. The giant looked to Donnegan and observed: "Know a good definition
of the word, skunk?"

"Nope," said Donnegan, brightening now that the stern eye, of the
bartender was turned away.

"Here's one that might do. A skunk is a critter that bites when your
back is turned and runs when you look it in the eye. Here's how!"

He drained his own glass, and Donnegan dexterously followed the example.

"And what might you be doing around these parts?" asked the big man,
veiling his contempt under a mild geniality.

"Me? Oh, nothing."

"Looking for a job, eh?"

Donnegan shrugged.

"Work ain't my line," he confided.

"H'm-m-m," said Hal Stern. "Well, you don't make no bones about it."

"But just now," continued Donnegan, "I thought maybe I'd pick up some
sort of a job for a while." He looked ruefully at the palms of his hands
which were as tender as the hands of a woman. "Heard a fellow say that
Jack Landis was a good sort to work for--didn't rush his men none. They
said I might find him here."

The big man grunted.

"Too early for him. He don't circulate around much till the sun goes
down. Kind of hard on his skin, the sun, maybe. So you're going to work
for him?"

"I was figuring on it."

"Well, tie to this, bud. If you work for him you won't have him over
you."

"No?"

"No, you'll have"--he glanced a little uneasily around him--"Lord Nick."

"Who's he?"

"Who's he?" The big man started in astonishment. "Sufferin' catamounts!
Who is he?" He laughed in a disagreeable manner. "Well, son, you'll
find out, right enough!"

"The way you talk, he don't sound none too good."

Hal Stern grew anxious. "The way I talk? Have I said anything agin' him?
Not a word! He's--he's--well, there ain't ever been trouble between us
and there never ain't going to be." He flushed and looked steadily at
Donnegan. "Maybe he sent you to talk to me?" he asked coldly.

But Donnegan's eyes took on a childish wideness.

"Why, I never seen him," he declared. Hall Stern allowed the muscles of
his face to relax. "All right," he said, "they's no harm done. But Lord
Nick is a name that ain't handled none too free in these here parts.
Remember that!"

"But how," pondered Donnegan, "can I be working for Lord Nick when I
sign up to work under Jack Landis?"

"I'll tell you how. Nick and Lebrun work together. Split profits. And
Nelly Lebrun works Landis for his dust. So the stuff goes in a
circle--Landis to Nelly to Lebrun to Nick. That clear?"

"I don't quite see it," murmured Donnegan.

"I didn't think you would," declared the other, and snorted his disgust.
"But that's all I'm going to say. Here come the boys--and dead dry!"

For the afternoon was verging upon evening, and the first drift of
laborers from the mines was pouring into The Corner. One thing at least
was clear to Donnegan: that everyone knew how infatuated Landis had
become with Nelly Lebrun and that Landis had not built up an
extraordinarily good name for himself.




12


By the time absolute darkness had set in, Donnegan, in the new role of
lady's chaperon, sat before a dying fire with Louise Macon beside him.
He had easily seen from his talk with Stern that Landis was a public
figure, whether from the richness of his claims or his relations with
Lord Nick and Lebrun, or because of all these things; but as a public
figure it would be impossible to see him alone in his own tent, and
unless Louise could meet him alone half her power over him--supposing
that she still retained any--would be lost. Better by far that Landis
should come to her than that she should come to him, so Donnegan had
rented two tents by the day at an outrageous figure from the
enterprising real estate company of The Corner and to this new home he
brought the girl.

She accepted the arrangement with surprising equanimity. It seemed that
her father's training had eliminated from her mind any questioning of
the motives of others. She became even cheerful as she set about
arranging the pack which Donnegan put in her tent. Afterward she cooked
their supper over the fire which he built for her. Never was there such
a quick house-settling. And by the time it was absolutely dark they had
washed the dishes and sat before Lou's tent looking over the night
lights of The Corner and hearing the voice of its Great White Way
opening.

She had not even asked why he did not bring her straight to Jack Landis.
She had looked into Donnegan's tent, furnished with a single blanket and
his canvas kit, and had offered to share her pack with him. And now they
sat side by side before the tent and still she asked no questions about
what was to come.

Her silence was to Donnegan the dropping of the water upon the hard
rock. He was crumbling under it, and a wild hatred for the colonel rose
in him. No doubt that spirit of evil had foreseen all this; and he knew
that every moment spent with the girl would drive Donnegan on closer to
the accomplishment of the colonel's great purpose--the death of Jack
Landis. For the colonel, as Jack's next of kin, would take over all his
mining interests and free them at a stroke from the silent partnership
which apparently existed with Lord Nick and Lester. One bullet would do
all this: and with Jack dead, who else stood close to the girl? It was
only necessary that she should not know who sped the bullet home.

A horrible fancy grew up in Donnegan, as he sat there, that between him
and the girl lay a dead body.

He was glad when the time came and he could tell her that he was going
down to The Corner to find Jack Landis and bring him to her. She rose to
watch him go and he heard her say "Come soon!"

It shocked Donnegan into realization that for all her calm exterior she
was perfectly aware of the danger of her position in the wild mining
camp. She must know, also, that her reputation would be compromised; yet
never once had she winced, and Donnegan was filled with wonder as he
went down the hill toward the camp which was spread beneath him; for
their tents were a little detached from the main body of the town.
Behind her gentle eyes, he now felt, and under the softness of her
voice, there was the same iron nerve that was in her father. Her hatred
could be a deathless passion, and her love also; and the great question
to be answered now was, did she truly love Jack Landis?

The Corner at night was like a scene at a circus. There was the same
rush of people, the same irregular flush of lights, the same glimmer of
lanterns through canvas, the same air of impermanence. Once, in one of
those hushes which will fall upon every crowd, he heard a coyote wailing
sharply and far away, as though the desert had sent out this voice to
mock at The Corner and all it contained.

He had only to ask once to discover where Landis was: Milligan's dance
hall. Before Milligan's place a bonfire burned from the beginning of
dusk to the coming of day; and until the time when that fire was
quenched with buckets of water, it was a sign to all that the merriment
was under way in the dance hall. If Lebrun's was the sun of the
amusement world in The Corner, Milligan's was the moon. Everybody who
had money to lose went to Lebrun's. Every one who was out for gayety
went to Milligan's. Milligan was a plunger. He had brought up an
orchestra which demanded fifteen dollars a day and he paid them that and
more. He not only was able to do this, but he established a bar at the
entrance from which all who entered were served with a free drink. The
entrance, also, was not subject to charge. The initial drink at the door
was spiced to encourage thirst, so Milligan made money as fast, and far
more easily, than if he had been digging it out of the ground.

To the door of this pleasure emporium came Donnegan. He had transformed
himself into the ragged hobo by the jerking down of his cap again, and
the hunching of his shoulders. And shrinking past the bar with a hungry
sidewise glance, as one who did not dare present himself for free
liquor, he entered Milligan's.

That is, he had put his foot across the threshold when he was caught
roughly by the shoulder and dragged to one side. He found himself
looking up into the face of a strapping fellow who served Milligan as
bouncer. Milligan had an eye for color. Andy Lewis was tolerably well
known as a fighting man of parts, who not only wore two guns but could
use them both at once, which is much more difficult than is generally
understood. But far more than for his fighting parts Milligan hired his
bouncer for the sake of his face. It was a countenance made to
discourage trouble makers. A mule had kicked Lewis in the chin, and a
great white welt deformed his lower lip. Scars of smallpox added to his
decorative effect, and he had those extremely bushy brows which for some
reason are generally considered to denote ferocity. Now, Donnegan was
not above middle height at best, and in his present shrinking attitude
he found himself looking up a full head into the formidable face of the
bouncer.

"And what are you doing in here?" asked the genial Andy. "Don't you know
this joint is for white folks?"

"I ain't colored," murmured Donnegan.

"You took considerable yaller to me," declared Lewis. He straightway
chuckled, and his own keen appreciation of his wit softened his
expression. "What you want?"

Donnegan shivered under his rags.

"I want to see Jack Landis," he said.

It had a wonderful effect upon the doorkeeper. Donnegan found that the
very name of Landis was a charm of power in The Corner.

"You want to see him?" he queried in amazement. "You?"

He looked Donnegan over again, and then grinned broadly, as if in
anticipation. "Well, go ahead. There he sits--no, he's dancing."

The music was in full swing; it was chiefly brass; but now and then, in
softer moments, one could hear a violin squeaking uncertainly. At least
it went along with a marked, regular rhythm, and the dancers swirled
industriously around the floor. A very gay crowd; color was apparently
appreciated in The Corner. And Donnegan, standing modestly out of sight
behind a pillar until the dance ended, noted twenty phases of life in
twenty faces. And Donnegan saw the flushes of liquor, and heard the loud
voices of happy fellows who had made their "strikes"; but in all that
brilliant crew he had no trouble in picking out Jack Landis and Nelly
Lebrun.

They danced together, and where they passed, the others steered a little
off so as to give them room on the dance floor, as if the men feared
that they might cross the formidable Landis, and as if the women feared
to be brought into too close comparison with Nelly Lebrun. She was,
indeed, a brilliant figure. She had eyes of the Creole duskiness, a
delicate olive skin, with a pastel coloring. The hand on the shoulder of
Landis was a thing of fairy beauty. And her eyes had that peculiar
quality of seeming to see everything, and rest on every face
particularly. So that, as she whirled toward Donnegan, he winced,
feeling that she had found him out among the shadows.

She had a glorious partner to set her off. And Donnegan saw bitterly
why Lou Macon could love him. Height without clumsiness, bulk and a
light foot at once, a fine head, well poised, blond hair and a Grecian
profile--such was Jack Landis. He wore a vest of fawn skin; his boots
were black in the foot and finished with the softest red leather for the
leg. And he had yellow buckskin trousers, laced in a Mexican fashion
with silver at the sides; a narrow belt, a long, red silk handkerchief
flying from behind his neck in cowboy fashion. So much flashing
splendor, even in that gay assembly, would have been childishly
conspicuous on another man. But in big Jack Landis there was patently a
great deal of the unaffected child. He was having a glorious time on
this evening, and his eye roved the room challenging admiration in a
manner that was amusing rather than offensive. He was so overflowingly
proud of having the prettiest girl in The Corner upon his arm and so
conscious of being himself probably the finest-looking man that he
escaped conceit, it might almost be said, by his very excess of it.

Upon this splendid individual, then, the obscure Donnegan bent his gaze.
He saw the dancers pause and scatter as the music ended, saw them drift
to the tables along the edges of the room, saw the scurry of waiters
hurrying drinks up in the interval, saw Nelly Lebrun sip a lemonade, saw
Jack Landis toss off something stronger. And then Donnegan skirted
around the room and came to the table of Jack Landis at the very moment
when the latter was tossing a gold piece to the waiter and giving a new
order.

Prodigal sons in the distance of thought are apt to be both silly: and
disgusting, but at close hand they usually dazzle the eye. Even the cold
brain of Donnegan was daunted a little as he drew near.

He came behind the chair of the tall master of The Corner, and while
Nelly Lebrun stopped her glass halfway to her lips and stared at the
ragged stranger, Donnegan was whispering in the ear of Jack Landis:
"I've got to see you alone."

Landis turned his head slowly and his eye darkened a little as he met
the reddish, unshaven face of the stranger. Then, with a careless shrug
of distaste, he drew out a few coins and poured them into Donnegan's
palm; the latter pocketed them.

"Lou Macon," said Donnegan.

Jack Landis rose from his chair, and it was not until he stood so close
to Donnegan that the latter realized the truly Herculean proportions of
the young fellow. He bowed his excuses to Nelly Lebrun, not without
grace of manner, and then huddled Donnegan into a corner with a wave of
his vast arm.

"Now what do you want? Who are you? Who put that name in your mouth?"

"She's in The Corner," said Donnegan, and he dwelt upon the face of Jack
Landis with feverish suspense. A moment later a great weight had slipped
from his heart. If Lou Macon loved Landis it was beyond peradventure
that Landis was not breaking his heart because of the girl. For at her
name he flushed darkly, and then, that rush of color fading, he was left
with a white spot in the center of each cheek.




13


First his glance plunged into vacancy; then it flicked over his shoulder
at Nelly Lebrun and he bit his lip. Plainly, it was not the most welcome
news that Jack Landis had ever heard.

"Where is she?" he asked nervously of Donnegan, and he looked over the
ragged fellow again.

"I'll take you to her."

The big man swayed back and forth from foot to foot, balancing in his
hesitation. "Wait a moment."

He strode to Nelly Lebrun and bent over her; Donnegan saw her eyes flash
up--oh, heart of the south, what eyes of shadow and fire! Jack Landis
trembled under the glance; yes, he was deeply in love with the girl. And
Donnegan watched her face shade with suspicion, stiffen with cold anger,
warm and soften again under the explanations of Jack Landis.

Donnegan, looking from the distance, could read everything; it is
nearness that bewitches a man when he talks to a woman. When Odysseus
talked to Circe, no doubt he stood on the farther side of the room!

When Landis came again, he was perspiring from the trial of fire
through which he had just passed.

"Come," he ordered, and set out at a sweeping stride.

Plainly he was anxious to get this matter done with as soon as possible.
As for Donnegan, he saw a man whom Landis had summoned to take his place
sit down at the table with Nelly Lebrun. She was laughing with the
newcomer as though nothing troubled her at all, but over his shoulder
her glance probed the distance and followed Jack Landis. She wanted to
see the messenger again, the man who had called her companion away; but
in this it was fox challenging fox. Donnegan took note and was careful
to place between him and the girl every pillar and every group of
people. As far as he was concerned, her first glance must do to read and
judge and remember him by.

Outside Landis shot several questions at him in swift succession; he
wanted to know how the girl had happened to make the trip. Above all,
what the colonel was thinking and doing and if the colonel himself had
come. But Donnegan replied with monosyllables, and Landis, apparently
reconciling himself to the fact that the messenger was a fool, ceased
his questions. They kept close to a run all the way out of the camp and
up the hillside to the two detached tents where Donnegan and the girl
slept that night. A lantern burned in both the tents.

"She has made things ready for me," thought Donnegan, his heart opening.
"She has kept house for me!"

He pointed out Lou's tent to his companion and the big man, with a
single low word of warning, threw open the flap of the tent and strode
in.

There was only the split part of a second between the rising and the
fall of the canvas, but in that swift interval, Donnegan saw the girl
starting up to receive Landis. Her calm was broken at last. Her cheeks
were flushed; her eyes were starry with what? Expectancy? Love?

It stopped Donnegan like a blow in the face and turned his heart to
lead; and then, shamelessly, he glided around the tent and dropped down
beside it to eavesdrop. After all, there was some excuse. If she loved
the man he, Donnegan, would let him live; if she did not love him, he,
Donnegan, would kill him like a worthless rat under heel. That is, if he
could. No wonder that the wanderer listened with heart and soul!

He missed the first greeting. It was only a jumble of exclamations, but
now he heard: "But, Lou, what a wild idea. Across the mountains--with
whom?"

"The man who brought you here."

"Who's he?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? He looks like a shifty little rat to me."

"He's big enough, Jack."

Such small praise was enough to set Donnegan's heart thumping.

"Besides, father told me to go with him, to trust him."

"Ah!" There was an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis' voice. "The
colonel knows him? He's one of the colonel's men?"

Plainly the colonel was to him as the rod to the child.

"Why didn't you come directly to me?"

"We thought it would be better not to."

"H'm-m. Your guide--well, what was the colonel's idea in sending you
here? Heavens above, doesn't he know that a mining camp is no place for
a young girl? And you haven't a sign of a chaperon, Lou! What the devil
can I do? What was in his mind?"

"You haven't written for a long time."

"Good Lord! Written! Letters! Does he think I have time for letters?"
The lie came smoothly enough. "Working day and night?"

Donnegan smoothed his whiskers and grinned into the night. Landis might
prove better game than he had anticipated.

"He worried," said the girl, and her voice was as even as ever. "He
worried, and sent me to find out if anything is wrong."

Then: "Nonsense! What is there to worry about? Lou, I'm half inclined to
think that the colonel doesn't trust me!"

She did not answer. Was she reading beneath the boisterous assurance of
Landis?

"One thing is clear to me--and to you, too, I hope. The first thing is
to send you back in a hurry."

Still no answer.

"Lou, do you distrust me?"

At length she managed to speak, but it was with some difficulty: "There
is another reason for sending me."

"Tell me."

"Can't you guess, Jack?"

"I'm not a mind reader."

"The cad," said Donnegan through his teeth.

"It's the old reason."

"Money?"

"Yes."

A shadow swept across the side of the tent; it was Landis waving his arm
carelessly.

"If that's all, I can fix you up and send you back with enough to carry
the colonel along. Look here--why, I have five hundred with me. Take it,
Lou. There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's
as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs
up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the
job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em every minute, I tell you!"

He sighed noisily.

"But the end of it is, dear"--how that small word tore into the heart of
Donnegan, who crouched outside--"that you must go back tomorrow morning.
I'd send you tonight, if I could. As a matter of fact, I don't trust the
red-haired rat who--"

The girl interrupted while Donnegan still had control of his
hair-trigger temper.

"You forget, Jack. Father sent me here, but he did not tell me to come
back."

At this Jack Landis burst into an enormous laughter.

"You don't mean, Lou, that you actually intend to stay on?"

"What else can I mean?"

"Of course it makes it awkward if the colonel didn't expressly tell you
just what to do. I suppose he left it to my discretion, and I decide
definitely that you must go back at once."

"I can't do it."

"Lou, don't you hear me saying that I'll take the responsibility? If
your father blames you let him tell me--"

He broke down in the middle of his sentence and another of those
uncomfortable little pauses ensued. Donnegan knew that their eyes were
miserably upon each other; the man tongue-tied by his guilt; the girl
wretchedly guessing at the things which lay behind her fiancé's words.

"I'm sorry you don't want me here."

"It isn't that, but--"

He apparently expected to be interrupted, but she waited coolly for him
to finish the sentence, and, of course, he could not. After all, for a
helpless girl she had a devilish effective way of muzzling Landis.
Donnegan chuckled softly in admiration.

All at once she broke through the scene; her voice did not rise or
harden, but it was filled with finality, as though she were weary of the
interview.

"I'm tired out; it's been a hard ride, Jack. You go home now and look me
up again any time tomorrow."

"I--Lou--I feel mighty bad about having you up here in this infernal
tent, when the camp is full, and--":

"You can't lie across the entrance to my tent and guard me, Jack.
Besides, I don't need you for that. The man who's with me will protect
me."

"He doesn't look capable of protecting a cat!"

"My father said that in any circumstances he would be able to take care
of me."

This reply seemed to overwhelm Landis.

"The colonel trusts him as far as all that?" he muttered. "Then I
suppose you're safe enough. But what about comfort, Lou?"

"I've done without comfort all my life. Run along, Jack. And take this
money with you. I can't have it."

"But, didn't the colonel send--"

"You can express it through to him. To me it's--not pleasant to take
it."

"Why, Lou, you don't mean--"

"Good night, Jack. I don't mean anything, except that I'm tired."

The shadow swept along the wall of the tent again. Donnegan, with a
shaking pulse, saw the profile of the girl and the man approach as he
strove to take her in his arms and kiss her good night. And then one
slender bar of shadow checked Landis.

"Not tonight."

"Lou, you aren't angry with me?"

"No. But you know I have queer ways. Just put this down as one of them.
I can't explain."

There was a muffled exclamation and Landis went from the tent and strode
down the hill; he was instantly lost in the night. But Donnegan, turning
to the entrance flap, called softly. He was bidden to come in, and when
he raised the flap he saw her sitting with her hands clasped loosely and
resting upon her knees. Her lips were a little parted, and colorless;
her eyes were dull with a mist; and though she rallied herself a little,
the wanderer could see that she was only half-aware of him.

The face which he saw was a milestone in his life. For he had loved her
jealously, fiercely before; but seeing her now, dazed, hurt, and
uncomplaining, tenderness came into Donnegan. It spread to his heart
with a strange pain and made his hands tremble.

All that he said was: "Is there anything you need?"

"Nothing," she replied, and he backed out and away.

But in that small interval he had turned out of the course of his gay,
selfish life. If Jack Landis had hurt her like this--if she loved him so
truly--then Jack Landis she should have.

There was an odd mixture of emotions in Donnegan; but he felt most
nearly like the poor man from whose hand his daughter tugs back and
looks wistfully, hopelessly, into the bright window at all the toys.
What pain is there greater than the pain that comes to the poor man in
such a time? He huddles his coat about him, for his heart is as cold as
a Christmas day; and if it would make his child happy, he would pour out
his heart's blood on the snow.

Such was the grief of Donnegan as he backed slowly out into the night.
Though Jack Landis were fixed as high as the moon he would tear him out
of his place and give him to the girl.




14


The lantern went out in the tent; she was asleep; and when he knew that,
Donnegan went down into The Corner. He had been trying to think out a
plan of action, and finding nothing better than to thrust a gun stupidly
under Landis' nose and make him mark time, Donnegan went into Lebrun's
place. As if he hoped the bustle there would supply him with ideas.

Lebrun's was going full blast. It was not filled with the shrill mirth
of Milligan's. Instead, all voices were subdued to a point here. The
pitch was never raised. If a man laughed, he might show his teeth but he
took good care that he did not break into the atmosphere of the room.
For there was a deadly undercurrent of silence which would not tolerate
more than murmurs on the part of others. Men sat grim-faced over the
cards, the man who was winning, with his cold, eager eye; the chronic
loser of the night with his iron smile; the professional, ever debonair,
with the dull eye which comes from looking too often and too closely
into the terrible face of chance. A very keen observer might have
observed a resemblance between those men and Donnegan.

Donnegan roved swiftly here and there. The calm eye and the smooth play
of an obvious professional in a linen suit kept him for a moment at one
table, looking on; then he went to the games, and after changing the
gold which Jack Landis had given as alms so silver dollars, he lost it
with precision upon the wheel.

He went on, from table to table, from group to group. In Lebrun's his
clothes were not noticed. It was no matter whether he played or did not
play, whether he won or lost; they were too busy to notice. But he came
back, at length, to the man who wore the linen coat and who won so
easily. Something in his method of dealing appeared to interest Donnegan
greatly.

It was jackpot; the chips were piled high; and the man in the linen coat
was dealing again. How deftly he mixed the cards!

Indeed, all about him was elegant, from the turn of his black cravat to
the cut of the coat. An inebriate passed, shouldered and disturbed his
chair, and rising to put it straight again, the gambler was seen to be
about the height and build of Donnegan.

Donnegan studied him with the interest of an artist. Here was a man,
harking back to Nelly Lebrun and her love of brilliance, who would
probably win her preference over Jack Landis for the simple reason that
he was different. That is, there was more in his cravat to attract
astonished attention in The Corner than there was in all the silver lace
of Landis. And he was a man's man, no doubt of that. On the inebriate he
had flashed one glance of fire, and his lean hand had stirred uneasily
toward the breast of his coat. Donnegan, who missed nothing, saw and
understood.

Interested? He was fascinated by this ma