Riders West. Ernest Haycox

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      CHAPTER III.

       THE CHARMING SINNER

       Table of Contents

      Dan Bellew walked through the thickening crowd and across the square to Townsite's store, feeling his nerves loosen and grow ragged. It was, he realized distantly, the inevitable after-punishment a man took for throwing his past and future into one debatable moment of time. All the sounds and sensations of the fight remained with him, and the last scene—of Tom Addis lying on the earth like a vagrant shadow—was etched in his mind with an intaglio sharpness. Thinking of it, his eyes assumed a somber, smoky coloration. Townsite and Jubilee noticed that the moment they followed Dan into the store.

      Townsite, older and wiser, said nothing; he began a little chore of whittling plug tobacco for his pipe. But Jubilee, whose thoughts always ran parallel to those of his partner, cast a keen glance at Dan and broke the spell.

      "He was free, white, and twenty-one. He had his plain choice, and he chose to make the fight. Forget it: Might of been you, Dan."

      "I'm sorry for him," said Dan, profoundly regretful.

      Townsite drawled: "A man always goes through these scraps twice. Durin' the shootin' and after the shootin'. Second time is hardest."

      "I should have moved into the play sooner," said Dan, reviewing each step of the way. "I caught him too late, after he was set. He was in no frame of mind to back up. I'm sorry for that. It wasn't his personal fight—it was the fight of the man that ordered him to Trail." His temper rose and rubbed the words. "There's something else to put on Neel St. Cloud's record."

      "You sure?" questioned Jubilee.

      "Not the slightest doubt of his part in this," answered Bellew. "He's not sure he can muster the votes to put his thugs in office. So he's going to the gun."

      Townsite removed his pipe, bent over the counter. "We can't let him, boys. It'll be a taste of raw meat for him and his kind. Once the wild ones climb the saddle, this valley will be bloody ground, I'm telling you."

      Jubilee squatted on a sugar sack, shook tobacco in a brown paper. He threw back his angular, sorrel head and surveyed the others slantwise. "Well, first shot has been fired."

      "There will be more," observed Bellew, very quiet. "The break's been made. It can't be stopped—not short of a decisive defeat for one side or the other."

      Townsite's bearded face waggled slowly from side to side. He muttered forebodingly: "I hate to think of the next ten days."

      "Why just ten days?" asked Jubilee practically. "The election is only part of it. Doesn't matter who wins, the grief is going to go on."

      There was a little silence. Heavy smoke folded across the yellow lamplight. Townsite's pipe wheezed. "I have lived here twenty-seven years. I put up the first cabin in this town. I helped drive in the first herd of Texas beef." Paused, Townsite stared at the others with a sudden angry energy. "I knew the fine men that made this range, and I'll be damned if I'll stand by and let the crooks make an outlaw strip of it!"

      "I wish I could see what there was in it for St. Cloud," fretted Jubilee.

      Bellew came to a stand. "Three years ago he had half a dozen cowhands up in Smoky Draw. Maybe three thousand head of stock. Today nobody knows how many riders are hiding back in that timber. I've checked twenty or better. As for the beef, it has grown out of all proportions to the natural increase."

      "I know," agreed Jubilee. "But there's a limit to thievin'. What will political control of the county buy him?"

      "I've told you before the man has a restless, fertile brain. He's got some plan."

      "We're ruined if he does gain control," grumbled Townsite.

      "Well—" began Jubilee.

      Dan said "Careful," in a flat voice; and all three turned toward the doorway and toward the man framed in it. "Gasteen," muttered Dan, "you have a poor habit of eavesdropping."

      Ruel Gasteen remained still. Beneath the shadowing brim of his hat lay features scarcely conforming with one another. A lantern jaw threw the lower lip beyond the upper and so created a plain impression of brutality. The man's skin was yery dark, tightly bound across broad blunt bones; his eyes were secretively inset and somehow suggested the predatory. Inordinately long arms hung straight and motionless beside him.

      "What do you want?" challenged Townsite.

      Gasteen shifted. "If I was sheriff, Bellew," said he in a strange softness, "you'd be in jail for that shootin'."

      "We'll wait till you are," countered Bellew evenly.

      Gasteen nodded. "It will be my first official act—to put you there."

      "Thanks for the warning."

      Gasteen stepped backwards, out of sight, as discreetly as he had entered. The three presently heard his pony drumming down the street, northward.

      "Gone to report the bad luck to St. Cloud," growled Townsite.

      Bellew said, "Just so."

      Townsite thought of something else. "By the way, that Eastern girl came to see me. Name's Nan Avery. She wanted me to get her a homestead somewhere beyond town."

      Bellew displayed a quick interest. "You told her that was impossible, didn't you?"

      "It did me no good," chuckled Townsite. "I talked to her like a beloved uncle. When I got through she went right on as if she hadn't heard. That girl has been accustomed to giving orders."

      "You should have mentioned the danger of a woman living alone on the prairie."

      "She waved that aside, too. СКАЧАТЬ