The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition. Max Brand

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      Suddenly she leaped from the bunk and cast herself before her father. That sudden motion had brought the revolver into the hand of Moon, but it was instantly restored to its holster. The double movement had been merely a flash of light. Such speed of hand was uncanny.

      “Steady,” said the outlaw. “No cause for jumping in front of the sneak, lady. I ain’t going to shoot him right away. Not right away. Maybe never. All depends on how him and me come to agree. Or maybe well agree to disagree. Just you sit down yonder where you were, miss. No harm’ll come to you.” He removed his hat and bowed to her, and in so doing he half turned his back on her father.

      She knew that the devilish brain of the man had inspired this maneuver to tempt her father into action. But Hugh Dawn was in no condition to fight. His will was paralyzed. He could not fight any more than the bird can escape from the hypnotic eye of the snake.

      “They tell hard tales about Jack Moon,” went on the big man, thus announcing himself, “but they never yet whispered a story about him laying a finger on a woman, young or old. I can tell you to lay to it that you’re as safe with me as if you was a six-months-old baby in the arms of your mother. It ain’t you I aim to talk to—it’s that!”

      He indicated her father with a jerk of his thumb. But for some reason his contempt did not degrade Hugh Dawn. The man would fight willingly enough against odds which were at all even. But he recognized the madness of a bulldog attacking a lion. Even as great as this was the contrast, it was not that Moon was so much larger in physical dimensions. But he was made bigger by an inward lordliness that overflowed. The poise of his head was that of a conqueror. His spirit towered above her father like the young Achilles over some nameless Trojan warrior.

      “I seen the box outside,” said Jack Moon. “What was in it, Dawn?”

      There was no resistance in Dawn. He pointed sullenly to the slip of paper lying on the bed—the paper on which had been written the directions for reaching the site of the treasure.

      The bandit strode across the room and reached for it, but the girl, with a lightning movement, forestalled him. She swept it up, leaped away from Moon, who followed with a startled exclamation, and, balling the paper to a hard knot as she ran, she reached the window above the lake and threw the paper as far as her strength allowed. The wind was blowing in that direction, and the precious slip would be wafted down to the waters of the lake.

      The hand of Jack Moon was checked in the very act of falling on her shoulder and turning her around. But when she faced him, white and drawn about the lips, he was smiling again.

      “That took nerve,” he said, “seeing the reputation I got around these parts. But I got to tell you this, lady. It don’t do even for ladies to fool with Jack Moon. I don’t handle ‘em the way I handle men, but most generally I find ways of makin’ ‘em behave. Now”—and here he turned on Hugh Dawn—“tell me what was on that paper!”

      “No, no,” shouted the girl. “Don’t you see, dad, that it’s the price of your own head?”

      “There you are again,” said Jack Moon sternly, seeing that the exclamation had sealed the lips of Dawn as the latter was about to speak. “You’ll have to learn better than that, lady, before you’re with me long. Dawn, will you open up and tell me?”

      The gun gleamed in his hand. He thrust it against the breast of Dawn.

      “Now talk quick,” he muttered. “I know everything, Dawn. Treat heard you and Whitwell, but I want to get the yarn out of your own mouth. I’ll tell you this, Dawn: if you open up, maybe they’ll be a way out for you!”

      “Don’t talk, don’t talk!” cried Jerry Dawn. “Don’t trust him, dad!”

      “If you care for your rotten soul,” said Jack Moon, “come out with it, Dawn!”

      The latter groaned: “What price d’you pay, Moon?”

      “Price? What sort of a price d’you ask?”

      “Freedom,” said Dawn. “And your word on it.”

      “Would you trust him?” moaned Jerry.

      “Be quiet, Jerry,” said her father. “No matter what else Moon is, he’s a man of his word. It’s never been broke yet.”

      “But it’s seldom given,” replied Moon coolly. “Why should I give it to you now?”

      “How high,” retorted Dawn, “d’you put the price on my life?”

      “Prices? I dunno. Prices change. I’ve known gents I’d shoot as soon as I’d kill a dog. I’ve known some that would have to pay thousands to buy themselves off. But for a gent that’s double crossed me the way you’ve done —well, it’d have to be high!”

      Hugh Dawn nodded.

      “How high?” he asked.

      “Everything you got,” said the outlaw, “would be enough.”

      To the astonishment of the girl, her father shook his head, puzzled.

      “You can make your choice,” said Moon. “Either you turn over the whole Cosslett stuff to me or—”

      “I haven’t got the Cosslett money. You know that!”

      “You’ve got the plan to show where it is.”

      “Suppose the plan turns out wrong?”

      The admission implied in this question made the eyes of Jack Moon blaze.

      “By the gods,” he whispered, “you did get it!”

      “You lied to me, then,” growled Dawn. “Treat didn’t hear Whitwell talk about the box and what he thought was in it!”

      “Treat didn’t hear anything. But now that I know you’ve got the plan inside your head, come out with it, Dawn, and you and me will make a dicker. Wait! Here’s something that the rest of the boys have got to vote on. You can thank your stars that I’ve got the majority of the crew with me!”

      He whistled, a shrill, fluting sound long prolonged, and there was a rushing of horses’ hoofs up the slope to the crest of the hill. Presently the door and the windows were packed with ominous faces, and there was everywhere the glittering of drawn guns. Nearly a dozen men had gathered around the little ruined shanty in the space of a few seconds. Well indeed had it been for Hugh Dawn that he had not attacked the leader when the latter was seemingly alone.

      “Boys,” said Jack Moon to the dark faces which waited silently, all turned toward Dawn and his daughter, “I’ve run him down, but it seems that he can offer a price. I want to know what figure you’d put on his head?”

      “Whitwell was my pal,” said a voice sternly. “What price was he given a chance to pay? I say shoot the skunk and have it done with.”

      Another voice growled: “What price was Gandil given a chance to pay? Wasn’t he a better man than Dawn ever dreamed of being? I say shoot the skunk!”

      “Wait a minute, boys,” said the leader, raising his hand. “You got as good a right to vote on this as I have. And you’re going to have your СКАЧАТЬ