haven’t told me yet—so many things have been happening —how you came to catch him in the hall of the house.”
“I was at the window in the hall. I saw Ronicky climb up the side of the house, but the distance and the dark made it a hard job to shoot from where I was, even though I was sure that he was one of Moon’s men come for me. I sneaked around into the place in front of the stairs where they turn into the hall on the second floor, and when he came down I flashed the electric torch at him and shot. How I missed, I don’t know. But he changed into a wild cat the minute the light hit him. He jumped here and there like a flash, and before I could land him he swung on me and knocked me out. Where he got the muscle to do it out of those skinny arms of his, beats me; but it ain’t the only thing about him that beats me. Look at the way he talks to his hoss like she was human. Look at the way he goes off riding alone by night!”
“I can understand everything you mention,” replied his daughter.
“Sure you can,” and Hugh Dawn grinned. “That’s because he’s smiled at you a couple of times today.”
“Do you mean to infer—” began Jerry.
“Don’t be proud,” chuckled her father.
“I never heard of anything so absurd,” said Jerry indignantly. “Why, I —I don’t know the man! He’s a stranger!”
“Sure. That’s why you’re blushing like this. You are your mother all over again, my dear, and she was always forming quick likes and dislikes. Heaven bless her! But me, I take more time to think things and folks over. You’ll find out that it pays, Jerry, in the long run.”
“I don’t know what all the talk’s about,” said the girl a trifle uneasily. “If you think that I’ve been forward with Mr. Doone—”
“There you go!” Her father laughed as he spoke. “I will ask you to stop climbing mountains, and you jump over a cliff instead. I don’t mean nothing, except for you to watch your ways with Ronicky. You ain’t an ordinary girl, Jerry, dear. You got more looks than most. Not that you’re the most beautiful I ever seen, but you got a downright pleasing way, and when you smile your whole face lights up a lot.”
“Of course all this is absurd,” said Jerry. “But if I choose to be courteous to a man who saved your life—both our lives, perhaps— is there anything wrong in it?”
“Courtesy is one thing; it ain’t what I’m talking about,” said her father gravely.
“And the other thing?”
“Well, Jerry, I’d a pile rather see you dead than get seriously interested in a gent like Ronicky Doone.”
She stared at him, almost frightened.
“I see,” said he, very grave, “that you’ve been thinking even more than I suspected.”
“Dad,” she cried, “this is insufferable. Oblique expressions like these only serve to—”
“Tie them big words up, brand ‘em, and keep ‘em for the fancy markets,” said her father gruffly. “I don’t foller ‘em easy. Talk plain. I’m a plain man. And I tell you plainly that I love you too much to see you throw away time on one like Doone. For why? Because he’s a will-o’-the-wisp, my dear. He’s one of these gents who go through life without ever settling down to one thing. He’s about what? Twenty-five, I’d take him to be. Well, Jerry, he’s crammed ten times more fighting inside his twenty-five years than I’ve put inside forty- five. A fighting man is like a fighting wolf—they’d better hunt alone!”
“You don’t mean,” she said, “that he’s a gun fighter!”
“Don’t I? Well, honey, you got to learn to use your eyes! What does it mean when a gent carries his holster slung away down low on his right hip so’s it’s just within twitching distance of his finger tips? Ain’t that to have it ready for a fast draw? And what does it mean when a gent’s left hand is all pale from being in a glove, and when his right hand is brown as a berry?”
“Because the left hand is the bridle hand.”
“Because the right hand is the gun hand, Jerry!”
She winced at his surety.
“I’m as sure of it,” said her father, blowing a great cloud of smoke from his pipe, “as I am that my name is Hugh Dawn. And watch his hands. Long and slender and nervous. No flesh on ‘em. He’s never made a living by work. No calluses on those hands. Nothing to keep them from being fast as a flash of light—like the hands of a musician, they look to me. Always doing something with that right hand of his. His left hand is used to hanging steady on the reins, and it’s always lying still. But his right hand ain’t never still. It’s always jumping about and rapping on something, or going here and there and everywhere just for the sake of being under way. I’ll tell you why: Because that’s the right hand that’s saved the life of Ronicky Doone more’n once! It’s the hand that’s got his trigger finger! It’s his fortune!”
“You mean,” breathed the girl, “that he’s a professional gunman—a murderer?”
“Not a bit! He wouldn’t take advantage of his skill with a gun— not to hurt anybody. But I’ll wager he’s got his man before now. I’ll wager that before he dies he’ll get a pile more. It’s wrote in big letters all over him.”
“He’ll change,” said Jerry Dawn feverishly. “I know that he’ll change!”
“Maybe you could do the changing?” said her father.
Her flush was at least a partial admission that she had had the thought.
“Some girls,” said he, “are so plumb good that they marry a man for the sake of being close to him and reforming him. Sometimes they do. Ronicky Doone is a fine gent. Brave, honest as the day’s long, generous. But he ain’t meant for a girl to love. I’m putting it strong. I don’t mean that you feel anything like that for him yet. I’m just warning you. Because if you just give a gent like that a kind look, you may set him on fire; he starts making love like a fire in a storm; first thing you know, you’re engaged. And that’s the end. Jerry, you’ll watch out?”
As he leaned earnestly toward her he saw her face whiten, saw her eyes widen. There was a ghost-seeing look about her, and instantly Hugh Dawn knew that a horror was standing in the door of the cabin. Instinctively he measured the distance to his gun. Like a fool he had hung it with his belt on a nail against the wall. It was hopelessly out of arm’s length.
He turned his head with a convulsive jerk, and there in the door he saw Jack Moon.
XI. THE TRAP
There was no gun in his hand, and yet the man radiated danger. His silent coming, the very smile with which he looked down on them, were filled with terror-inspiring qualities. As for Hugh Dawn, he uttered a faint groan and then whirled out of his chair and stood upon his widely braced feet. Even when Dawn reeled back within reaching distance of his gun on the wall and made a motion toward it, the tall man in the door did not offer to draw his own weapon, but the smile hardened
