Ain't I apt to find it?"
"Sure. That's the point. You're apt to find lots of guns. Here's what I mean, Hal. Some of the cowpunchers are beginnin' to think I'm a little partial to Jim Silent's crowd. An' they're watchin' my house."
"The hell!"
"You're right. It is. That's one of the reasons I'm beatin' it for the hills."
He started his horse to a walk. "But of course if you're bound to have that gun, Hal—"
Purvis grinned mirthlessly, his lean face wrinkling to the eyes, and he swung his horse in beside Buck.
"Anyway," said Buck, "I'm glad to see you ain't a fool. How's things at the camp?"
"Rotten. They's a girl up there—"
"A girl?"
"You look sort of pleased. Sure they's a girl. Kate Cumberland, she's the one. She seen us hold up the train, an' now we don't dare let her go. She's got enough evidence to hang us all if it came to a show-down."
"Kate! Delilah."
"What you sayin'?"
"I say it's damn queer that Jim'll let a girl stay at the camp."
"Can't be helped. She's makin' us more miserable than a whole army of men. We had her in the house for a while, an' then Silent rigged up the little shack that stands a short ways—"
"I know the one you mean."
"She an' her dad is in that. We have to guard 'em at night. She ain't had no good word for any of us since she's been up there. Every time she looks at a feller she makes you feel like you was somethin' low-down—a snake, or somethin'."
"D'you mean to say none of the boys please her?" asked Buck curiously. He understood from Dan's delirious ravings that the girl was in love with Lee Haines and had deserted Barry for the outlaw. "Say, ain't Haines goodlookin' enough to please her?"
Purvis laughed unpleasantly.
"He'd like to be, but he don't quite fit her idea of a man. We'd all like to be, for that matter. She's a ravin' beauty, Buck. One of these blue-eyed, yaller-haired kind, see, with a voice like silk. Speakin' personal, I'm free to admit she's got me stopped."
Buck drew so hard on the diminishing butt of his cigarette that he burned his fingers.
"Can't do nothin' with her?" he queried.
"What you grinnin' about?" said Purvis hotly. "D'you think you'd have any better luck with her?"
Buck chuckled.
"The trouble with you fellers," he said complacently, "is that you're all too damned afraid of a girl. You all treat 'em like they was queens an' you was their slaves. They like a master."
The thin lips of Purvis curled.
"You're quite a man, ain't you?"
"Man enough to handle any woman that ever walked."
Purvis broke into loud laughter.
"That's what a lot of us thought," he said at last, "but she breaks all the rules. She's got her heart set on another man, an' she's that funny sort that don't never love twice. Maybe you'll guess who the man is?"
Buck frowned thoughtfully to cover his growing excitement.
"Give it up, Buck," advised Purvis. "The feller she loves is Whistlin' Dan Barry. You wouldn't think no woman would look without shiverin' at that hell-raiser. But she's goin' on a hunger strike on account of him. Since yesterday she wouldn't eat none. She says she'll starve herself to death unless we turn her loose. The hell of it is that she will. I know it an' so does the rest of the boys."
"Starve herself to death?" said Buck exuberantly. "Wait till I get hold of her!"
"You?"
"Me!"
Purvis viewed him with compassion.
"Me bein' your friend, Buck," he said, "take my tip an' don't try no fool stunts around that girl. Which she once belongs to Whistlin' Dan Barry an' therefore she's got the taboo mark on her for any other man. Everything he's ever owned is different, damned different!"
His voice lowered to a tone which was almost awe.
"Speakin' for myself, I don't hanker after his hoss like Bill Kilduff; or his girl, like Lee Haines; or his life, like the chief. All I want is a shot at that wolf-dog, that Black Bart!"
"You look sort of het up, Hal."
"He come near puttin' his teeth into my leg down at Morgan's place the day Barry cleaned up the chief."
"Why, any dog is apt to take a snap at a feller."
"This ain't a dog. It's a wolf. An' Whistlin' Dan—" he stopped.
"You look sort of queer, Hal. What's up?"
"You won't think I'm loco?"
"No."
"They's some folks away up north that thinks a man now an' then turns into a wolf."
Buck nodded and shrugged his shoulders. A little chill went up and down his back.
"Here's my idea, Buck. I've been thinkin'—no, it's more like dreamin' than thinkin'—that Dan Barry is a wolf turned into a man, an' Black Bart is a man turned into a wolf."
"Hal, you been drinkin'."
"Maybe."
"What made you think—" began Buck, but the long rider put spurs to his horse and once more broke into a fast gallop.
30. "THE MANHANDLING"
It was close to sunset time when they reached the old Salton place, where they found Silent sitting on the porch with Haines, Kilduff, Jordan, and Rhinehart. They stood up at sight of the newcomers and shouted a welcome. Buck waved his hand, but his thoughts were not for them. The music he had heard Dan whistle formed in his throat. It reached his lips not in sound but as a smile.
At the house he swung from the saddle and shook hands with Jim Silent. The big outlaw retained Buck's fingers.
"You're comin' in mighty late," he growled, "Didn't you get the signal?"
Buck managed to meet the searching eyes.
"I was doin' better work for you by stayin' around the house," he said.
"How d'you mean?"
"I stayed there to pick up things you might want to know. It wasn't easy. The boys are beginnin' to suspect me."
"The
