again Deveny shot a glance at him.
“But you didn’t bother her—Barbara?” questioned Rogers in a dry, light voice.
“No,” grinned Deveny; “that time hasn’t come—yet. It’s coming soon. I told Lolly to keep an eye on her; I’ve got Engle and Barthman and Kelmer watching at the doors so Barbara can’t light out for the Rancho Seco. She don’t get away until tomorrow. Then she goes with me to the end of Sunset Trail. I’ve sent Shorty Mallo to Willow’s Wells for the parson.”
“Barbara know what’s up?” Rogers’ voice was low and throaty.
Again Deveny glanced at him—sharply.
“Hell, no!” he snapped. “It’s none of her damned business—nor anybody’s!” He grinned maliciously when he saw Rogers’ face whiten.
“Barbara will need a husband now,” Deveny went on. “With old Morgan gone and her brother sloped from the home ranch, she’ll be kind of lonesome. I aim to cure her of that.”
He laughed, and Rogers writhed inwardly. For Rogers had long nursed a secret hope that one day the fates might take a notion to give him the chance that Deveny intended to seize.
But Rogers was forced to conceal his jealousy and disappointment. He laughed mirthlessly.
“So she can’t get away, eh?—she’s corralled!”
“Bah!” declared Deveny; “she won’t want to get away—once she knows what I mean—that it’s going to be a regular wedding. She’ll raise a fuss, most likely, to make folks believe she’s unwilling, but in the end she’ll get over it.”
Deveny glanced out of the window at the blot that was now closer.
“It’s Laskar, all regular,” he said. “He’s leading a sorrel horse—Dolver’s horse. Old Morgan got Dolver—looks like, the damned old gopher! Men as willing as Dolver are not found every day.” He looked at the third man, who had not spoken.
“Lawson,” he said, “you mosey down the trail a little piece and meet Laskar. Bring him here!”
Lawson, a thin-faced, medium-sized man with narrow shoulders, whose distinguishing mark was a set of projecting upper teeth that kept his mouth in a continual smirking smile, got up quickly and went out. Deveny and Rogers, their thoughts centered upon the same person—Barbara Morgan—sat silent, watching Lawson as he rode down the street toward the point where the trail, crossing the broken stretch of country that intervened, merged into the desert.
Half an hour later Laskar, holding his chest, where Purgatory had kicked him, was sitting at the table in the rear room of the First Chance, cursing with a fluency that he had not yielded to in many years.
“Dolver’s wiped out!” he gasped hoarsely; “plugged so quick he didn’t know he was hit. A center shot—plumb in the heart; his own gun goin’ off while he was fallin’. I looked him over—after. He was croaked complete. Then that sober-faced hyena lifts my gun—an’ the rifle—an’ says things to me, which I don’t try to cross him. Then he goes behind the rock—where we was havin’ it out—an’ while he’s gone I tries to git my guns from under that devil-eyed cayuse of his’n.
“An’ I don’t succeed—noways. That black devil turns on a half-dollar an’ plants his hoofs plumb in my breast-bone. If I’d been an inch nearer, or if he’d have kicked me a foot lower, or a foot higher, I’d be layin’ out there where Dolver is now, the coyotes an’ the buzzards gnawin’ at me.”
Unmoved by Laskar’s incoherence, Deveny calmly watched him. And now, when Laskar paused for breath, Deveny spoke slowly:
“A black horse, you said. How did a black horse get there? Old Morgan rode a bay when he left Lamo—Balleau says.”
“Did I say Morgan rode a black horse?” queried Laskar, knowledge in his eyes that he had a thing to tell that would blanch their faces. He grinned, still holding his chest, his glance malicious.
“Did I say a black horse?” he repeated. “Did I say Morgan rode a black horse? Morgan didn’t. Morgan rode a bay—an’ the Chief run it off after he shot Morgan. But Morgan didn’t die right away, an’ the Chief he had to slope, he said—an’ he did—leavin’ me an’ Dolver to finish old Morgan.
“We was tryin’ our damnedest when this guy on the black horse pops up out of nowhere an’ salivates Dolver.”
“Who was it?”
This was Deveny. He was now leaning forward, a pout on his lips, watching Laskar with an intent, glowering gaze.
“ ‘Drag’ Harlan!” shouted Laskar. His face lighted with a hideous joy as he watched the effect of his news.
“ ‘Drag’ Harlan! Do you hear?” he went on. “ ‘Drag’ Harlan, the Pardo ‘two-gun’ man! He’s headed toward Lamo. He bored Dolver, an’ he said that soon as Morgan cashed in he was hittin’ the breeze for here!”
Lawson, the man who had gone to meet Laskar, ejaculated hoarsely, and stood rigid, his mouth open, his eyes bulging. It was the involuntary expression of the astonishment and fear that had seized him. Laskar forgot the pain in his chest long enough to straighten and grin at Lawson.
Rogers’ face had changed color. He, too, had become rigid. He had been in the act of reaching for the bottle on the table, and the hand that had been extended had been suddenly drawn back, so that the hand was now midway between his body and the bottle—and the fingers were clenched. The other hand, under the table, was likewise clenched, and the muscles of his jaws were corded. Into his eyes had come a furtive, restless gleam, and his face had paled.
Deveny gave no visible sign of perturbation. He coolly reached out, grasped the bottle that Rogers had been reaching for, and poured some of the amber fluid into one of the glasses. The other men watched him silently—all of them intent to note the tremor they expected to see.
Deveny’s hand did not tremble. He noted the glances of the men—the admiration that came into their eyes as with steady muscles he raised the glass and drank—and he smiled with slight contempt.
“Coming here, eh?” he said evenly. “So he said that. Did he mention what he was coming for?”
“He didn’t mention,” replied Laskar.
“So he downed Dolver. Did he say what for?”
“Said Dolver had shot up his partner, Davey Langan—back in Pardo. Harlan was evenin’ up.”
“What do you know about Harlan?”
The question was addressed to all of them.
Rogers answered.
“He’s a bad guy—all bad. He’s an iceberg, an’ he’s got the snakiest gun-hand of any man in the country. Draws hesitatin’-like. A man don’t know when he’s goin’ to uncork his smoke-wagons. I seen him put Lefty Blandin’ out. He starts for his guns, an’ then kind of stops, trickin’ the other guy into goin’ for his. Then, before the other guy can get his gun to workin’, Harlan’s stickin’ his away, an’ the guy’s
