not taking his gaze from Morgan.
“Keep a-goin’,” suggested Harlan.
“Interested, eh?” grinned Morgan; “I knowed you’d be. Well, here I am—I didn’t get to the assay office at Pardo; an’ I’ll never get there now.” He paused and then went on:
“Now they’re after Barbara, my daughter. Deveny—an’ Strom Rogers, an’ some more—all of them, I reckon. I ought to have got out long ago. But it’s too late now, I reckon.
“That damned Deveny—he’s a wolf with women. Handsome as hell, with ways that take with most any woman that meets him. An’ he’s as smooth an’ cold an’ heartless as the devil himself. He ain’t got no pity for nobody or nothin’. An’ Strom Rogers runs him a close second. An’ there’s more of them almost as bad.
“They watch every trail that runs from the Rancho Seco to—to anywhere. If I ride north there’s someone watchin’ me. If I ride south there’s a man on my trail. If I go east or west I run into a man or two who’s takin’ interest in me. When I go to Lamo, there’ll be half a dozen men strike town about the same time.
“I can’t prove they are Deveny’s men—but I know it, for they’re always around. An’ it’s the same way with Barbara—she can’t go anywhere without Deveny, or Rogers—or some of them—ain’t trailin’ her.
“As I said, the sheriff can’t do anything—or he won’t. He looks worried when I meet him, an’ gets out of my way, for fear I’ll ask him to do somethin’.
“That’s the way it stands. An’ now Barbara will have to play it a lone hand against them. Bill Morgan—that’s my son—ain’t home. He’s gallivantin’ around the country, doin’ some secret work for the governor. Somethin’ about rustlers an’ outlaws. He ought to be home now, to protect Barbara. But instead he’s wastin’ his time somewheres else when he ought to be here—in Lamo—where’s there’s plenty of the kind of guys he’s lookin’ for.
“There’s only one man in the country I trust. He’s John Haydon, of the Star ranch—about fifteen miles west of the Rancho Seco. Seems to me that Haydon’s square. He’s an upstandin’ man of about thirty, an’ he’s dead stuck on Barbara. Seems to me that if it wasn’t for Haydon, Deveny, or Lawson, or Rogers, or some of them scum would have run off with Barbara long ago.
“You see how she shapes up?” he queried as he watched Harlan’s face.
“Looks bad for Barbara,” said Harlan slowly.
Morgan writhed and was silent for a time.
“Look here, Harlan,” he finally said; “you’re considered to be a hell-raiser yourself, but I can see in your eyes that you ain’t takin’ advantage of women. An’ Harlan”—Morgan’s voice quavered—“there’s my little Barbara all alone to take care of herself with that gang of wolves around. I’m wantin’ you to go to the Rancho Seco an’ look around. My wife died last year. There’s mebbe two or three guys around the ranch would stick to Barbara, but that’s all. Take a look at John Haydon, an’ if you think he’s on the level—an’ you want to drift on—turn things over to him.”
Morgan shuddered, and was silent for a time, his lips tight-shut, his face whitening in the dusk as he fought the pain that racked him. When he at last spoke again his voice was so weak that Harlan had to kneel and lean close to him to hear the low-spoken words that issued from between his quavering lips:
“Harlan—you’re white; you’ve got to be white—to Barbara! That paper I was tryin’ to stuff into my gun—when you come around the rock. You take it. It’ll tell you where the gold is. You’ll find my will—in my desk in my office—off the patio. Everything goes to Barbara. Everybody knows that. Haydon knows it—Deveny’s found it out. You can’t get me back—it’s too far. Plant me here—an’ tell Barbara.” He laughed hollowly. “I reckon that’s all.” He felt for one of Harlan’s hands, found it, and gripped it with all his remaining strength. His voice was hoarse, quavering:
“You won’t refuse, Harlan? You can’t refuse! Why, my little Barbara will be all alone, man! What a damned fool I’ve been not to look out for her!”
Night had come, and Morgan could not see Harlan’s face. But he was conscious of the firm grip of Harlan’s hands, and he laughed lowly and thankfully.
“You’ll do it—for Barbara—won’t you? Say you will, man! Let me hear you say it—now!”
“I’m givin’ you my word,” returned Harlan slowly. And now he leaned still closer to the dying man and whispered long to him.
When he concluded Morgan fought hard to raise himself to a sitting posture; he strained, dragging himself in the sand in an effort to see Harlan’s face. But the black desert night had settled over them, and all Morgan could see of Harlan was the dim outlines of his head.
“Say it again, man! Say it again, an’ light a match so’s I can see you while you’re sayin’ it!”
There was a pause. Then a match flared its light revealing Harlan’s face, set in serious lines.
“I wouldn’t lie to you—now—Morgan,” he said; “I’m goin’ to the Lamo country to bust up Deveny’s gang.”
Morgan stared hard at the other while the flickering light lasted with a strained intensity that transfigured his face, suffusing it with a glow that could not have been more eloquent with happiness had the supreme Master of the universe drawn back the mysterious veil of life to permit him to look upon the great secret.
When the match flickered and went out, and the darkness of the desert reigned again, Morgan sank back with a tremulous, satisfied sigh.
“I’m goin’ now,” he said; “I’m goin’—knowin’ God has been good to me.” He breathed fast, gaspingly. And for a moment he spoke hurriedly, as though fearful he would not be given time to say what he wanted to say:
“Someone plugged me—last night while I was sleepin’. Shot me in the chest—here. Didn’t give me no chance. There was three of them. My fire had gone out an’ I couldn’t see their faces. Likely Laskar an’ Dolver was two. The other one must have sloped. It was him shot me. Tried to knife me, too; but I fought him, an’ he broke away. It happened behind a rock—off to the left—a red boulder.
“I grabbed at him an’ caught somethin’. What it was busted. I couldn’t wait to find out what it was. I’m hopin’ it’s somethin’ that’ll help you to find out who the man was. I ain’t goin’ to be mean—just when I’m dyin’; but if you was to look for that thing, find it, an’ could tell who the man is, mebbe some day you’d find it agreeable to pay him for what he done to me.”
He became silent; no sound except his fast, labored breathing broke the dead calm of the desert night.
“Somethin’ more than the gold an’ Barbara back of it all,” he muttered thickly, seeming to lapse into a state of semiconsciousness in which the burden that was upon his mind took the form of involuntary speech: “Somethin’ big back of it—somethin’ they ain’t sayin’ nothin’ about. But Harlan—he’ll take care of—” He paused; then his voice leaped. “Why, there’s Barbara now! Why, honey, I thought—I—why——”
His
