Knights of the Range. Zane Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ sight was not swift enough to catch Frayne’s draw. But there the big blue guns were, spouting red behind puffs of smoke. Then followed the crashes, almost together. Covell’s gun was out and half up when it exploded. But his face was fiercely blank and he was swaying backward when his gun went off. Heaver sagged in the saddle as his horse lunged away, to unseat him and throw him heavily. Then Covell fell. Neither man moved a muscle. Both had been dead before they struck the ground.

      The other horses were hard to control. Iron arms dragged at their heads. Frayne had the riders covered. Perhaps the action of the horses favored Frayne in his intimidation of these men. None of them drew. As their mounts were pulled to a standstill Britt lined up beside Frayne with his two guns ready. The tension relaxed.

      “You fellars ride. Pronto!” called Britt, seizing the moment.

      Frayne’s left gun took a slight suggestive swerve toward the gate. As one man the raiders spurred their horses, almost running down the pale-faced Dillon, and galloped away toward San Marcos.

      “Fork yore hawse, Mugg,” called Britt. “This range won’t be healthy fer you heahafter. You shore got off easy. Take yore gun.”

      While Dillon hurried to leap astride Britt ran out the gate to where Holly hunched stiff over her pommel. The marble whiteness of her face, the dark fading horror of her dilated eyes, the palpitating of her heart attested to the strain she had come through.

      “Holly, it’s all over,” said Britt, fervently, as he grasped the gauntleted hand that shook on her knee. “Brace up. We’re shore lucky. Mebbe I won’t scold you good when we get home!”

      “He drove—the others away,” she panted, lifting her head to sweep the range with flashing glance.

      “Wal, I sort of snicker to say he did,” drawled Britt, talking to ease the contraction of his throat.

      “That devil—and the other man, Covell . . . dead?”

      “Daid?—I reckon they air.”

      “He killed them for me?”

      “Holly, lass, it shore wasn’t fer anyone else. . . . Come oot of it now. You had nerve. Don’t collapse now after it’s all over.”

      “He saved me—from God only knows what,” she whispered in awe.

      “Yes, he did, Holly. I cain’t gainsay thet. I’d had no show on earth if he had sided with Heaver. Shore I’d have killed Heaver, an’ then more of them. But I’d have got mine pronto. An’ thet’d left you at their mercy. . . . Holly, fer Gawd’s sake let this be a lesson to you.”

      “I must thank him—talk to him. . . . Go back, Britt. Give me a few moments. Then bring him to me.”

      Britt sometimes opposed Holly when she was serene and tractable, but never in her imperious moods, or when she was stirred by emotion. Naturally she had been poignantly upset. Still he did not quite like her request and he was in a quandary. As there seemed to be no help for it, however, he hid his dismay and hurried back inside the enclosure.

      He found Frayne leaning against the fence, one boot hooked on the lower pole. He was rolling a cigarette. Britt made note of the steady fingers. Frayne had shoved his sombrero back. His face was extraordinarily handsome, but that did not surprise Britt nearly so much as its utter absence of ashen hue, twitch, sweat, dark sombre cast, or anything else supposed to show in a man’s features immediately after dealing death. It was indeed a baffling face, smooth, unlined, like a stern image of bronze. Frayne had all the characteristics of the cowboy range-rider, even to the finest sombrero, belt, dress and boots, which but for their dark severity would have made him a dandy.

      “Got a match, Tex?” he inquired, civilly. His intonation was not that of a Southerner. Nor would Britt have accorded him western birth. Nevertheless the West had made him what he was. Britt had not seen his like.

      “Shore. Heah you air,” replied the Texan, producing a match.

      “Hardly needed you in that little set-to,” he said, as he lighted the cigarette. “But thanks all the same.”

      “You’re darn welcome,” grunted Britt, feelingly. “It was shore a bad mess. . . . Did you see me dancin’ aboot tryin’ to get a bead on Heaver?”

      “Yes, I was afraid you’d hit Miss Ripple. That made me run in sooner than I might have. I was curious to watch Heaver. Stranger to me where women are concerned.”

      “Wal, I seen thet, an’ I heahed you,” rejoined Britt. “But yore reasons don’t concern me. It was the result. Shore you saved me from gettin’ bored and Holly Ripple from wuss than death. . . . Seems sort of weak to thank you, Frayne.”

      “Don’t try. It was nothing.”

      “Wal, the girl wants to thank you. Come on oot.”

      “Thanks, Britt, but I’d rather not.”

      Holly, riding outside the fence on the grass, passed so close that she could not have failed to hear the cool speech of the raider. She turned in the gate, and rode up to the men. A wave of scarlet appeared to be receding from her face. Frayne stood out from the fence, and removing his sombrero, inclined his head.

      “May I ask your name?” she queried, composedly, though to Britt’s astonishment, her usual poise had gone into eclipse.

      “Frayne. Renn Frayne,” he replied. He was courteous but cold. The immeasurable distance between Holly Ripple and an outlaw of the range might have been imperceptible to Heaver, but not to this man.

      “Mr. Frayne, I—I am exceedingly grateful for your—your timely interference.”

      “Don’t mention it, Miss Ripple,” he returned, flipping his cigarette away. After that first direct glance he did not look up at her again. “I want no thanks. You only distress yourself further—coming inside near these dead men. Go away, at once.”

      “It was sickening, but I am over that. . . . Thanks in this case seem so silly. But won’t you accept something substantial?”

      “For what?” he retorted, and his wonderful gray eyes, clear and light as crystal, and as soulless, turned to fix upon her.

      “Evidently you place little store upon your service to me,” she replied, pride gaining ascendancy.

      “And you want to pay me for shooting a couple of dogs?”

      “You make my duty difficult, Mr. Frayne. . . . But I do want to reward you. Will you accept money?”

      “No.”

      She stripped off a gauntlet to take a magnificent ring of Spanish design from her finger and proffered that to him with an appealing smile.

      “Won’t you take this?”

      “Thank you. I don’t want it.”

      “Would you accept one of my thoroughbreds?” she persisted, hopefully.

      “Miss Holly Ripple,” he said, as if stung, “I am Renn Frayne, outlaw, rustler, gunman. This day made me a horse-thief. I have not a dollar to my name, nor a bed to sleep in, nor a friend in the world. But I cannot СКАЧАТЬ