The Greatest Adventure Books - MacLeod Raine Edition. William MacLeod Raine

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СКАЧАТЬ that Sig pointed out a small clearing ahead of them. “Cabin’s right oop on the edge of the aspens. See it?”

      The ranger nodded assent.

      “Ay bane go down first an’ see how t’ings look.”

      When the Norwegian entered the cabin, he saw two men seated at a table, playing seven up. The one facing him was Tommie, the cook; the other was an awkward heavy-set fellow, whom he knew for the man he wanted, even before the scarred, villainous face was twisted toward him.

      Struve leaped instantly to his feet, overturning his chair in his haste. He had not met the big Norseman since the night he had attempted to hang Fraser.

      “Ay bane not shoot yuh now,” Siegfried told him.

      “Right sure of that, are you?” the convict snarled, his hand on his weapon. “If you’ve got any doubts, now’s the time to air them, and we’ll settle this thing right now.”

      “Ay bane not shoot, Ay tell you.”

      Tommie, who had ducked beneath the table at the prospect of trouble, now cautiously emerged.

      “I ain’t lost any pills from either of your guns, gents,” he explained, with a face so laughably and frankly frightened that both of the others smiled.

      “Have a drink, Siegfried,” suggested Struve, by way of sealing the treaty. “Tommie, get out that bottle.”

      “Ay bane t’ink Ay look to my horse first,” the Norwegian answered, and immediately left by way of the back door not three minutes before Jed Briscoe entered by the front one.

      Jed shut the door behind him and looked at the convict.

      “Well?” he demanded.

      Struve faced him sullenly, without answering.

      “Tommie, vamos,” hinted Briscoe gently, and as soon as the cook had disappeared, he repeated his monosyllable: “Well?”

      “It didn’t come off,” muttered the other sulkily.

      “Just what I expected. Why not?”

      Struve broke into a string of furious oaths. “Because I missed him—missed him twice, when he was standing there naked before me. He was coming down to the creek to take a bath, and I waited till he was close. I had a sure bead on him, and he dived just as I fired. I got another chance, when he was running across, farther down, and, by thunder, I missed again.”

      Jed laughed, and the sound of it was sinister.

      “Couldn’t hit the side of a house, could you? You’re nothing but a cheap skate, a tin-horn gambler, run down at the heels. All right. I’m through with you. Lieutenant Fraser, from Texas, can come along and collect whenever he likes. I’ll not protect a false alarm like you any longer.”

      Struve looked at him, as a cornered wolf might have done. “What will you do?”

      “I’ll give you up to him. I’ll tell him to come in and get you. I’ll show him the way in, you white-livered cur!” bullied the cattleman, giving way to one of his rages.

      “You’d better not,” snarled the convict. “Not if you want to live.”

      As they stood facing each other in a panting fury the door opened, to let in Siegfried and the ranger.

      Jed’s rage against Struve died on the spot. He saw his enemy, the ranger, before him, and leaped to the conclusion that he had come to this hidden retreat to run him down for the Squaw Creek murders. Instantly, his hand swept to the hilt of his revolver.

      That motion sealed his doom. For Struve knew that Siegfried had brought the ranger to capture him, and suspected in the same flash that Briscoe was in on the betrayal. Had not the man as good as told him so, not thirty seconds before? He supposed that Jed was drawing to kill or cover him, and, like a flash of lightning, unscabbarded and fired.

      “You infernal Judas, I’ll get you anyhow,” he cried.

      Jed dropped his weapon, and reeled back against the wall, where he hung for a moment, while the convict pumped a second and a third bullet into his body. Briscoe was dead before Fraser could leap forward and throw his arms round the man who had killed him.

      Between them, they flung Struve to the ground, and disarmed him. The convict’s head had struck as he went down, and it was not for some little time that he recovered fully from his daze. When he did his hands were tied behind him.

      “I didn’t go for to kill him,” he whimpered, now thoroughly frightened at what he had done. “You both saw it, gentlemen. You did, lieutenant. So did you, Sig. It was self-defense. He drew on me. I didn’t go to do it.”

      Fraser was examining the dead man’s wounds. He looked up, and said to his friend: “Nothing to do for him, Sig. He’s gone.”

      “I tell you, I didn’t mean to do it,” pleaded Struve. “Why, lieutenant, that man has been trying to get me to ambush you for weeks. I’ll swear it.” The convict was in a panic of terror, ready to curry favor with the man whom he held his deadliest enemy. “Yes, lieutenant, ever since you came here. He’s been egging me on to kill you.”

      “And you tried it three times?”

      “No, sir.” He pointed vindictively at the dead man, lying face up on the floor. “It was him that ambushed you this morning. I hadn’t a thing to do with it.”

      “Don’t lie, you coward.”

      They carried the body to the next room and put it on a bed. Tommie was dispatched on a fast horse for help.

      Late in the afternoon he brought back with him Doctor Lee, and half an hour after sunset Yorky and Slim galloped up. They were for settling the matter out of hand by stringing the convict Struve up to the nearest pine, but they found the ranger so very much on the spot that they reconsidered.

      “He’s my prisoner, gentlemen. I came in here and took him—that is, with the help of my friend Siegfried. I reckon if you mill it over a spell, you’ll find you don’t want him half as bad as we do,” he said mildly.

      “What’s the matter with all of us going in on this thing, lieutenant?” proposed Yorky.

      “I never did see such a fellow for necktie parties as you are, Yorky. Not three weeks ago, you was invitin’ me to be chief mourner at one of your little affairs, and your friend Johnson was to be master of ceremonies. Now you’ve got the parts reversed. No, I reckon we’ll have to disappoint you this trip.”

      “What are you going to do with him?” asked Yorky, with plain dissatisfaction.

      “I’m going to take him down to Gimlet Butte. Arizona and Wyoming and Texas will have to scrap it out for him there.”

      “When, you get him there,” Yorky said significantly.

      “Yes, when I get him there,” answered the Texan blandly, carefully oblivious of the other’s implication.

      The moon was beginning to show itself over a hill before the Texan and Siegfried took the road with СКАЧАТЬ