Зелёный ствол

ГЛАВА VI

ЦЕПНАЯ МОЛНИЯ


Повернувшись из Чистилища, спешившись перед
офисом шерифа, Харлан столкнулся с тремя мужчинами, которые стояли снаружи здания и
наблюдали за ним.

Слегка шутливая улыбка, изогнувшая губы Харлана, могла бы выдать
причину, по которой он спешился перед офисом шерифа, поскольку он видел, как
Ласкар стоял с двумя другими мужчинами. Но ни один человек не мог бы сказать,
что он смотрел прямо на Ласкара, кроме самого Ласкара, который мог бы
поклясться, что Харлан не отводил от него взгляда, когда тот соскользнул
со спины Чистилища.

Ибо глаза Харлана ничего не говорили. Они, казалось, смотрели в никуда, и
во всем. Потому что Гейдж, наблюдая за мужчиной, был уверен, что Харлан смотрит
прямо на него, улыбаясь, а Девени, как и Ласкар, был уверен, что
взгляд Харлана направлен на него. И все они, заметив смущение друг друга,
стояли молча, дивясь.

И вот Девени обнаружил, что Харлан наблюдает за ними втроем
— трюк, который достигается путем фиксации взгляда на каком-то
предмете прямо перед одним из них; в данном случае это был ошейник Девени, а
затем добавление других объектов по обе стороны от центрального объекта.

Нужны крепкие нервы и непоколебимая воля, чтобы держать взгляд
непоколебимым, и полное отсутствие самосознания. Таким образом, Девени
знал, что он стоит в присутствии человека, чье самообладание и
самообладание были изумительны; и он также знал, что Харлан будет знать
о малейшем движении любого из троих; более того, он мог обнаружить
любые признаки согласованных действий.

И согласованные действия были запланированы Девени, Ласкаром и шерифом
. И они намеренно вытащили Ласкара наружу, ожидая, что Харлан
сделает то же, что и он, и, как предсказывали его глаза, он собирался поступить.

— Я ищу тебя, Ласкар, — мягко сказал он.

Ласкар напрягся. Он не двигался, держа руки по бокам, где
они были все время, прошедшее с тех пор, как Харлан спешился.

Глаза Ласкара быстро и вопросительно метнулись в сторону
Девени и шерифа. Пришло время Девени и шерифу
ускорить действие, о котором они договорились.

Но шериф не двигался. Девени также не изменил своей позиции. Девени
охватил странный, холодный озноб — смутный страх, тянущее
нежелание — нерешительность, которая поразила его и превратила его мысли в
странный беспорядок наполовину сформированных импульсов, которые, казалось, умерли, не успев
стать определенными.

Он и раньше сталкивался с вооруженными бойцами и не боялся их. Но
что-то барабанило ему в уши в эту минуту с раздражающей
настойчивостью, что это не простой человек; что перед ним,
в трех шагах от него, его глаза плавали в неустановленной пустоте, что
указывало на подготовку к насильственным действиям, был Харлан - «Дрэг» Харлан,
человек с двумя ружьями из Пардо; Харлан, которого никогда не били в перестрелках.

Мог ли он — Девени — победить его? Мог ли он сейчас, когда «Дрэг» Харлан наблюдает за
ними втроем, мог ли он рисовать с какой-либо надеждой на успех, с надеждой
опередить молниеносную руку другого на нисходящей вспышке на жизнь или
смерть?

Девени побледнел; он боялся рискнуть. Его глаза оторвались от
глаз Харлана; он бросил украдкой взгляд на шерифа.

Харлан поймал этот взгляд, безрадостно улыбнулся и коротко сказал Ласкару:

«Я сказал тебе продолжать дуть с ветерком, пока ветер не стихнет
», — сказал он. «Я должен был наскучить тебе там, у красной скалы. Я
дал тебе шанс.

"Харлан!"

Это был Гейдж. Голос его звучал так, как будто его выдавили: он был
хриплым и глухим.

Харлан не двигался, и его глаза не дрогнули. Теперь в них было чувство
: сильное, дикое, холодное. И его голос сорвался.

«Вы шериф, а? Вы хотите газу, я полагаю. Сделайте это быстро, пока
этот койот не взялся за свое ружье».

Шериф прочистил горло. «Вы арестованы, Харлан, за то, что
вчера убили Лейна Моргана в пустыне».

Глаза Харлана сузились, губы растянулись в кошачьей улыбке. Но он
не изменил своей позиции.

— Кто свидетель против меня?

«Ласкар».

— Он свидетельствовал?

— Он собирается.

Харлан немного попятился. Ухмылка у него была тигриная,
в глазах вспыхнуло желтое пламя. Ласкар, поняв, наконец, что ему
не на что рассчитывать на помощь Гейджа или Девени, застыл в отчаянии.

Смерть была перед ним; он это знал. Смерть или бессмертная слава. Судьба
распорядилась так или иначе, и он решил воспользоваться
шансом игрока, шансом, в котором он, Долвер и Шеф отказали Лейну Моргану.

Бессмертная слава, уважение и восхищение каждого человека в
секции достались бы ему, если бы он победил «Дрэга» Харлана вничью. Навсегда после этого,
если он победит Харлана, на него будут указывать как на человека, который встречался с
стрелком из Пардо на равных и убил его.

Он немного отошел от фасада здания, отдаляясь
от Девени и Гейджа, так что Харлану пришлось смотреть через два.
направления.

Лоусон и Роджерс, заняв позицию в дюжине шагов от
группы перед офисом шерифа, теперь попятились, молчаливые и
настороженные. Другие мужчины, которые стояли рядом,
мгновенно пришли в движение. Некоторые нырнули в удобные дверные проемы, другие удалились на
небольшое расстояние по улице. Но все пристально наблюдали, как Ласкар
своими действиями показывал, что намерен воспользоваться своим шансом.

Девени тоже внимательно наблюдал. Он не сводил глаз с Харлана,
даже не взглянув на Ласкара. Ибо страх Девени ушел, теперь, когда
ужасающее присутствие сосредоточило свое внимание на чем-то другом, и он был
полон решимости открыть секрет нерешительного «вытягивания» Харлана, любопытного
движения, которое дало человеку его прозвище «Тянуть». Открытие
этого секрета может много значить для него в будущем; это может
даже означать для него жизнь, если Харлан решит остаться в секции.

Харлан пока не сделал враждебного движения. Он по-прежнему стоял там же, где стоял
все это время, за исключением легкого шага назад, прежде чем
Ласкар начал двигаться. Но он наблюдал, как Ласкар отдалялся от
других мужчин, и когда он увидел, как глаза Ласкара расширились от мысли,
предшествующей действию, от блеска, отражающего команду, которую мозг
трансформирует в мускулы, его правая рука метнулась вниз к бедру
. .

С ворчанием, ибо Харлан почти предвосхитил его мысли, Ласкар
метнул правую руку к рукоятке пистолета.

Но рука Харлана замерла прямо над ложей его
оружия — пауза настолько ничтожно малая, что это было всего лишь намеком на паузу
.

Однако этого было достаточно, чтобы вывести Ласкара из равновесия, и, вытаскивая
оружие, он взглянул на кобуру Харлана.

Дюжина мужчин, наблюдавших за происходящим, впоследствии клялась, что Ласкар первым выхватил револьвер;
что оно было у него в руке, когда в него попала пуля Харлана. Но Девени знал
лучше; он знал, что Ласкар был мертв на ногах еще до того, как дуло его
оружия выскочило из кобуры, и что выстрел, который он произвел, был
результатом непроизвольного мускульного движения; что он нажал на спусковой крючок
после того, как пуля Харлана попала в него, и в то время как его пистолет расшатывался в
его руке.

Ибо Девени видел, как пуля из ружья Ласкара швыряла песок к
ногам Харлана после того, как оружие Харлана послало свою смерть навстречу Ласкару.
И Девени открыл секрет «ничьи» Харлана. Пауза
, конечно, была уловкой, чтобы сбить противника с толку. Но молниеносное прикосновение
руки Харлана к прикладу не было обманом. Это была чистая скорость, его
рука двигалась так быстро, что глаз не мог уследить.

И Девени не мог получить удовольствия от своего открытия. Харлан подождал,
пока пальцы Ласкара сомкнутся вокруг ложи его пистолета, прежде чем
вытащить свой собственный, и, следовательно, в сознании тех, кто был
свидетелем стрельбы, Харлан был оправдан.

Шериф Гейдж тоже так думал. Ибо, после того как тело Ласкара унесли
, Харлан подошел к тому месту, где стоял шериф, и коротко сказал:

«Ты хочешь, чтобы я для этого?»

Шериф Гейдж покачал головой. «Я думаю, все видели, как Ласкар пошел за своим
ружьем. У него не было никакого призыва, чтобы пойти за своим ружьем. Если бы вы застрелили
его без того, чтобы он дотянулся до него, все было бы по-другому».

Харлан холодно сказал: «Теперь я готов к этому испытанию».

Глаза шерифа загорелись каким-то тайным смыслом, когда они встретились
с глазами Харлана. Он стоял на небольшом расстоянии от Девени и
намеренно закрыл глаза на Харлана.

"Суд - ад!" — заявил он, — вы уничтожили улики.

Харлан обернулся и увидел Девени, стоящую рядом. И на мгновение, когда их
взгляды встретились — ровный и холодный взгляд Харлана, пылающий безошибочной враждебностью Девени
, — толпа, бывшая свидетелем расстрела Ласкара, снова замерла, а над улицей воцарилась
тишина, предвещавшая дальнейшее насилие . Затем Девени резко развернулся и пошел к «Первому шансу». Однако не успел он сделать и нескольких шагов, как дальше по улице, в сторону Трапезной, послышались звуки суматохи — мужчина ругался, а девушка кричала. Девени остановился и повернулся к точке, откуда доносились звуки, и на его лице появилось хмурое выражение. Харлан тоже повернулся. И он увидел на небольшом расстоянии вниз по улице бегущую девушку, ее волосы развевались вокруг нее, ее глаза были дикими от испуга и ужаса. За ней шел мужчина, ругаясь на бегу. Харлан тоже слышал проклятия шерифа Гейджа — слышал, как он сказал: «Это дочь Лейна Моргана — Барбара! Какого черта она здесь делает?» Девушка, опережая своего преследователя не более чем на дюжину футов, побежала прямо к Харлану. И когда - когда она подошла ближе и он увидел, что она действительно идет к нему - ее глаза были на нем, как будто она выбрала его как защитника - он двинулся к ней, выхватив одно из своих ружей, как он пошел. И, ухмыляясь, когда она приблизилась к нему, он широко раскинул руки, и она бросилась прямо в них, и положила голову ему на плечо, всхлипывая и говоря бессвязно. В то время как Харлан, его ухмылка исчезла, когда он посмотрел на ее преследователя, который остановился в полудюжине шагов от девушки, скромно скомандовал: а потом встань на дыбы и объяснись . Зачем ты гонишься за этой девчонкой? Мужчина покраснел, посмотрел вниз, затем на Девени. Последний, с надутыми губами и свирепо сияющими глазами, подошел к тому месту, где Харлан стоял, обнимая девушку одной рукой, в то время как Лоусон, Роджерс, Гейдж и несколько других мужчин медленно подошли и встали рядом с ним. ГЛАВА VII ОДИНОЧНАЯ Заметив согласованное движение к нему, Харлан ухмыльнулся Барбаре, мягко высвободился из ее хватки и подтолкнул ее к двери офиса шерифа. Она не возражала, так как чувствовала, что грядут новые неприятности, и знала, что не должна препятствовать никаким действиям, запланированным ее спасителем. Выйдя на улицу за несколько минут до этого, она заметила приготовления к последовавшей за этим стремительной трагедии; и, несмотря на ее дикое желание убежать от человека Девени, она остановилась, очарованная зрелищем, представленным двумя мужчинами, играющими со смертью. Она остановилась на небольшом расстоянии, присев к фасаду здания . И пока она пряталась там, дрожа от нового опасения, преследователь настиг ее. Она почти не замечала его и не сопротивлялась его хватке за руку, настолько силен был ее интерес к происходящему. Но внезапный конец романа снова заставил ее вспомнить о собственной опасности, и, когда она увидела, что Девени переходит улицу, она вырвалась из сдерживающей хватки мужчины и побежала к Харлану, убежденная, что он - потому что он казался враждебным к силам, выстроенным против нее, - защитил бы ее. И теперь, вжавшись в открытую дверь кабинета шерифа, она, затаив дыхание, с напряжением чувств наблюдала за движущимися фигурами в драме. Харлан немного попятился к двери, в которой стояла Барбара. Это движение было стратегическим и было совершено обдуманно. Он смотрел на население Ламо — по крайней мере, на ту его часть, которая была дома, — с утешительной уверенностью, что никакая часть населения не сможет от него отстать. Пистолет, который он выхватил при приближении преследователя Барбары, все еще был в его правой руке. Он никому не угрожал, и все же, казалось, угрожал всем в пределах его досягаемости. Ибо, хотя пистолет был свободно сжат в руке Харлана, дулом вниз, в глазах человека светился предостерегающий огонек. Улыбка на его лице тоже была беременна обещанием насилия. Это была поверхностная улыбка, не проникавшая глубже его губ, и за ней, частично замаскированной улыбкой, люди в группе на улице могли уловить губительную страсть, которая владела человеком в это мгновение. Девени, который приблизился к точке в пределах дюжины футов от Харлана, медленно, неохотно остановился, когда мельком увидел странный блеск в глазах Харлана. Все остальные, включая шерифа Гейджа, также остановились, причем большинство из них находились на значительном расстоянии, как предполагалось их представлениями о благоразумии. Ухмылка Харлана стала ироничной, когда он заметил паузу — согласованную негибкость населения Ламо. "Кажется, есть куча людей, желающих поболтать," сказал он скромно. -- И никто меня не теснит. Это вежливо и прилично. Кажется, вы все догадались, что места предостаточно, и тесниться не обязательно . его жилет - все равно, как если бы он был членом банды киска-кафе, которую я видел в Чикаго , строит лунные глаза на девчонок. Небесные крюки на ваших плечах любым способом, чтобы удовлетворить вашу идею безопасности. Поднимите их! Барбаре это показалось нелепым, несмотря на тень трагедии, которая скрывалась за всем этим — смущенное поведение, с которым граждане Ламо подчинились приказу, и зрелище, которое они представили после этого. Руки Девени поднялись последними. В его глазах был холодный злобный взгляд , когда под непоколебимым взглядом Харлана он наконец поднял руки и выставил их ладонями наружу, словно для осмотра. Роджерс немедленно подчинился. На его лице была улыбка, слабая и наводившая на мысль о мрачном веселье, потому что он был мысленно измучен созерцанием затруднительного положения Барбары и не мог придумать никакого плана, которым он мог бы помочь ей. Лицо Мидера Лоусона было угрюмым и полным бессильной ярости, и он посмотрел на Девени с горьким обвинением, когда увидел, что здоровяк намерен подчиниться приказу Харлана. Преследователь Барбары, почувствовав на себе сердитый взгляд Девени и с тревогой осознав, что Харлан не забыл его, покраснел и смутился. Он вздрогнул, и румянец на его лице усилился, когда Харлан в тишине, последовавшей за согласованным поднятием рук, резко сказал ему: «За что ты пытался загнать эту девушку? широко открыто!" Мужчина глупо усмехнулся, украдкой взглянув на Девени. -- Да ведь, -- сказал он, заметив хмурый взгляд Девени, -- я думаю, это потому, что я проникся к ней блеском. Я пытался сблизиться с ней на площадке возле " Еданого Дома", и она... ---" "Вы лжете!" Это была Барбара. Бледная, с горящими негодованием глазами, она вышла на улицу и встала рядом с Харланом. — Этот человек, — продолжала Барбара, указывая на краснолицего преследователя, — сегодня утром сказал мне, что Люк Девени велел ему следить за мной, что я не должна выходить из своей комнаты, пока за мной не придет Девени. заключенный. Он не пытался заняться со мной любовью. Я должен был убить его». Речь сняла напряжение, в котором находилась Барбара; поток слов, сорвавшихся с ее губ, стимулировал ее мысли и отбрасывал их назад, к ярким эпизодам ее принудительного заточения; они вызвали в ее сознании воспоминание о разговоре, который она слышала между Мидером Лоусоном и Стромом Роджерсом о ее отце. Она забыла о Харлане, Девени и остальных и побежала к шерифу Гейджу. Гейдж, высокий, стройный мужчина сорока лет, был бледен и чувствовал себя неловко, когда смотрел на белое, вздернутое лицо девушки. Он вздрогнул от исступленного призыва ее глаз и, не дрогнув, вынес боль от ее крепко сжимающих пальцев на плоти его рук. "Сделал - это отец _dead_!" Она ждала, отчаянно тряся Гейджа. И Гейдж не ответил, пока его взгляд не пробежался по толпе. Затем он медленно и неохотно сказал: - Я считаю, что он мертв. Девени говорил мне - он обвинял этого человека, Харлана, в убийстве твоего отца. Барбара развернулась и столкнулась с Девени. Ярость, яростная и страстная, пересилила горе, которое она испытывала по поводу смерти отца. Шок был ужасен, но он случился, когда она высунулась из окна, слушая Роджерса и Лоусона, когда она много минут лежала без сознания на полу комнаты. Поэтому чувство, которое она испытывала сейчас, было не совсем горем, а скорее неистовым стремлением наказать людей, убивших ее отца. — Вы обвинили этого человека в убийстве моего отца? — спросила она у Девени, подходя к нему и вставая, стиснув руки, с мертвенно-бледным лицом и пылающими ненавистью глазами. «Тебе лучше знать. Я слышал, как Стром Роджерс сказал Мидеру Лоусону, что это сделали Долвер, Ласкар и еще кто-то, кого он называл «Шеф». Я хочу знать, кто эти люди; я хочу знать, где я могу их найти! Я хочу, чтобы ты сказал мне!" — Ты расстроена, Барбара, — медленно и хладнокровно сказал Девени со слабой улыбкой на лице. "Я ничего об этом не знаю. Я просто повторил Гейджу слово, которое принес Ласкар. Ласкар сказал, что этот человек, Харлан, застрелил твоего отца. Это произошло примерно в дне пути - недалеко от Сторожевой скалы. Если Ласкар солгал, ему заплатили за его ложь. Потому что Харлан… — Девени сделал паузу, не закончив фразу, потому что девушка резко отвернулась от него и подошла к Харлану. — Это был Ласкар — человек, которого ты только что убил? — Ласкар и Долвер, — полагался Харлан. — Их было трое, — сказал твой отец. Один убежал ночью, оставив Долвера и Ласкара доделывать работу . Я наткнулся на них прямо, перейдя сюда из Пардо . не хватило духу замарать пустыню такой сволочью, как он». Глаза девушки на мгновение блеснули ядовитым удовлетворением. Потом она сказала дрожащим голосом: "А отец?" "Я похоронил его возле скалы," скромно ответил Харлан. Беззвучно, закрыв глаза, Варвара погрузилась в уличную пыль. Харлан смягчил силу ее падения левой рукой, частично поддерживая ее, пока она не рухнула; затем, его глаза вспыхнули холодным пламенем, он резко крикнул, не сводя глаз с группы мужчин: «Бери ее, Гейдж! Возьми ее на свое место!» Он подождал, пока Гейдж занес внутрь вялую форму. Затем его плечи поникли, тяжелый пистолет в правой руке пришел в равновесие, пальцы левой руки коснулись приклада оружия в кобуре на левом бедре, бессмысленный блеск в глазах сказал всем, что его чувства Он сказал Девени: «Я видел ту сделку в пустыне. Она была не на уровне. Я не ангел, но когда я сбиваю человека, я делаю это честно и прямо… "даю ему шанс. Я послал этого подлеца Долвера - и этого койота Ласкара. Это была грязная, гнилая сделка, как они подставили Моргана. Это меня раздражает - я думаю, вы можете услышать мои погремушки правильно теперь. Я остаюсь в Ламо, и я останусь с этой девушкой Барбарой, пока вы, ребята, не научитесь ходить прямо, как мужчины! Он сделал паузу, и воцарилась тяжелая тишина. Ни один мужчина не шевельнулся. С губ Харлана сорвалась ухмылка – кривая, насмешливая, сардоническая ухмылка, которая выражала его презрение к мужчинам, стоявшим перед ним. — Никаких мыслей, а? — усмехнулся он. «Есть некоторые парни, которые предпочли бы драться с женщинами, и их мысли не звучали бы правильно, если бы они окружили себя словами. Я вас больше не задерживаю . Разоблачение может сделать его прямо сейчас. Те, кто абсолютно уверен, что они закончили, могут бродить дальше, стараясь не заниматься какими-то обезьяньими делами! Он стоял, наблюдая, его широкий взгляд охватывал их всех, пока один за другим мужчины в группе молча не удалились. Они не ушли далеко. Некоторые из них просто заходили в близлежащие дверные проемы, другие медленно брели по улице и останавливались поодаль, чтобы оглянуться. Но никто не сделал враждебного шага, потому что они видели трагедию, в которой фигурировал Ласкар, и у них не было никакого желания провоцировать Харлана, чтобы он снова выразил холодный гнев, дремлющий в его глазах. Мидер Лоусон был первым из близких друзей Девени, покинувших группу. С угрюмым лицом и ядовитыми глазами он перешел улицу к «Первому шансу» и остановился в дверях рядом с Балло, который был заинтересованным зрителем. Затем переехал Стром Роджерс. Он медленно повернулся, бросив вопросительный взгляд на Девени, которая все еще стояла неподвижно. Девени опустил руки — они висели по бокам, правая рука была обращена ладонью к Харлану, красноречиво свидетельствуя о миролюбивых намерениях ее владельца. Взгляд Роджерса включал вывернутую наружу ладонь, и его губы изогнулись в слабой улыбке. Улыбка не исчезла, когда его взгляд переместился на лицо Харлана, и на мгновение, когда взгляды двух мужчин встретились, в них преобладала оценка. Харлан уловил в глазах Роджерса мрачное презрение к Девени и злобное удовлетворение; Роджерс увидел в глазах Харлана то, чего не видел ни один из мужчин, сталкивавшихся с этим человеком, — холодный юмор. Затем Роджерс ушел, оставив Девени один на один с человеком, нарушившим его планы. Девени не изменил своей позиции, и какое-то мгновение после отъезда Роджерса не было произнесено ни слова. Затем впервые с тех пор, как он спешился из Чистилища, глаза Харлана утратили свою широко раскрытую, всеобъемлющую пустоту. Они встретили Девени честно, с постоянной, прямой, скучной интенсивностью; свет в них напоминал желтое пламя, которое Девени однажды видел в глазах мексиканского ягуара несколько лет назад в лагере на Нойсесе. Девени знал, что означал свет в глазах Харлана. Это означало наличие дикой, раздирающей страсти, стихийных порывов; это означало, что человек , стоявший перед ним, жаждал убить его, ждал малейшего его враждебного движения. Это значило больше. Блеск в глазах Харлана указывал на то, что этот человек обладал тем странным и почти сверхъестественным инстинктом чтения мыслей, что он мог уловить в чужом взгляде мысленный импульс прежде, чем мускулы другого могли ответить на него. Кроме того, это означало верную смерть для Девени, если он подчинится наполовину сформированной решимости рисовать и стрелять, которая была в его сознании в этот момент. Он опустил веки, пытаясь скрыть эту мысль от Харлана. Но когда он снова поднял взгляд, то увидел, как губы Харлана скривились в холодной улыбке, увидел, как Харлан медленно убирает в ножны пистолет, который держал в правой руке. И теперь Харлан стоял перед ним, оба оружия в кобурах. Он и Девени противостояли друг другу на основе равенства. Харлан не воспользовался преимуществом. Судя по всему, если Девени сейчас решит сделать ничью и бросить, его шансы будут такими же хорошими, как и у Харлана. И все же Девени знал, что они не так хороши. Дело в том, что действие Харлана, когда он вложил пистолет в ножны, убедило Девени в том, что человек угадал его мысли по выражению его глаз до того, как он закрыл их веками, и он был убежден, что Харлан ощутил холод ужаса, охвативший его в этот момент. мгновенный. Он был уверен в этом, когда услышал голос Харлана , низкий и насмешливый: «Ты ждешь разборок?» Девени бледно улыбнулась. "Я не против сказать вам, что минуту назад у меня было такое представление. Но я боялся, что могу быть немного медленным. Когда вы сбили Ласкара, я наблюдал за вами, пытаясь узнать секрет вашего розыгрыша. Я не Я не учусь этому, потому что секрета нет - вы просто прирожденный стрелок без изъяна. Вы самый быстрый человек с ружьем, которого я когда-либо видел, - и я снимаю перед вами шляпу. Харлан слабо улыбнулся, но глаза его не утратили своей бдительности, а пламя в них заметно не остыло. Только его губы выдавали любые эмоции, которые он испытывал. Он не доверял Девени, так как видел полусформировавшуюся решимость в глазах человека, и его мускулы напряглись в ожидании подвоха. — Ты остался здесь не для того, чтобы сказать мне это. Начни настоящий разговор. "Правильно - я не сделал," сказал Девени. Теперь он был спокоен и мягок, восстановив самообладание. «Хиггинс следил за Барбарой Морган по моему приказу. Но я не хотел причинить девушке вреда. Я знал, что она была в городе, и я слышал, что несколько парней строили планы относительно нее. Поэтому я поставил Хиггинса охранять ее. ... Естественно, она думала, что я причинил ей вред. — Естественно, — сказал Харлан. Девени холодно сказал: «Я признаю, что у меня плохая репутация. Но это не относится к женщинам. Это больше в твоей сфере». Он многозначительно посмотрел на друга. "Имеешь в виду?" - О, черт, вы достаточно хорошо понимаете, что я имею в виду. Вы сами не такой законопослушный гражданин. Я слышал о вас - часто. И я восхищался вами. Дело в том, что я мог бы найти место, где вы подошли бы в самый раз. Нам нужен еще один человек - человек с вашими общими размерами и характером. Харлан усмехнулся. «Я благодарю вас. И я очень ценю то, что вы сказали . Я вам так нравился, что вы пытались подставить меня по поводу того, что выслали Лейна Моргана». — Это бизнес, — рассмеялся Девени. — Значит, вы были неизвестной величиной. "Но не сейчас - а?" вернулся Харлан, его глаза мерцали с холодным юмором. «Ты меня правильно понял. То, что я болтал о том, чтобы прилепиться к Барбаре Морган, не было настоящим товаром, а?» "Конечно, нет!" — засмеялся Девени. — За этим должен стоять какой-то эгоистичный мотив . — Ты точно мне не поверил? «Конечно, нет», — усмехнулся Девени, потому что ему показалось, что он увидел отблеск неискренности в глазах Харлана. «Тогда мне придется снова тявкать, — сказал Харлан. "Теперь поймите это прямо. Я придерживаюсь Барбары Морган. С этого момента я управляю ранчо Секо. Я управляю им по-своему. Никто не беспокоит Барбару Морган, кроме тех парней, которых она хочет беспокоить. Она. Это тебя отпускает. Ты мерзкий койот, и у меня нет с тобой ничего общего, кроме рукоятки ружья . Я разорву тебя на части!" Лицо Девени изменило цвет. Он раздулся от ядовитой ярости, злобно заблестели глаза и напряглись мускулы. Он встал, борясь с охватившей его жаждой убийства, почти убеждённый воспользоваться жалким шансом опередить Харлана до его оружия. "У вас есть понятия, а?" — услышал он насмешливый голос Харлана. «Ну, не порти их. Я был бы рад, если бы ты почувствовал, что должен был начать неделю назад». Девени улыбнулась с отвратительной безрадостностью. Но он снова поймал пламя в глазах Харлана. Он повернулся, ничего больше не говоря, и пошел через улицу, не оглядываясь. Улыбки последовали за ним; несколько человек шутливо заметили, и почти сразу же, зная, что этот последний кризис миновал, граждане Ламо возобновили свои прерванные удовольствия. Харлан стоял неподвижно, пока Девени не исчез в «Первом шансе», затем быстро повернулся и вошел в офис шерифа. Глава 8 Барбара в недоумении Полчаса спустя, с Барбарой Морган, на «Билли» — пегом пегом , — ехавшей рядом с ним, Харлан выскочил из Ламо в Чистилище. Они пошли по тропинке — слабой и узкой — которая вела на юг, потому что Барбара сказала, что Ранчо Секо лежит в этом направлении. Харлан не видел ни Девени, ни Роджерса, ни Лоусона после сцены перед офисом шерифа. Он некоторое время разговаривал с Гейджем, ожидая, пока Барбара Морган немного оправится от пережитого шока. Затем, когда он сказал ей, что собирается сопровождать ее на ранчо Секо — а она не возражала, — он отправился на поиски ее пони и нашел его в конюшне позади трактира. Насколько Харлан знал, никто в Ламо, кроме шерифа Гейджа, не наблюдал за отъездом его и Барбары. И пока они уезжали, между ними не было произнесено ни слова — Ламо наконец превратился в почти невидимую точку в огромном зияющем пространстве, которое они оставили позади. Барбара чувствовала странное равнодушие к происходящему; ее мозг был в состоянии тупой апатии, вызванной шоком и периодом страха, в котором она жила больше дня и ночи. Ей, казалось, было все равно, что с ней случилось. Она знала наверняка, что едет к ранчо Секо с человеком, которого, как она слышала, другие мужчины называли преступником; она понимала, что, должно быть, чем-то рискует, принимая его эскорт, - и все же она не могла заставить себя почувствовать тот ужасный страх, который, как она знала, должна испытывать любая молодая женщина в ее положении. Ей казалось, что теперь ничего не имеет значения - очень много. Ее отец был мертв — убит какими-то людьми — двое из которых были наказаны смертью, а еще один — таинственный человек по имени «Вождь» — которого убьют, как только она найдет его. Это решение глубоко засело в ее сознании. Однако через некоторое время ее взгляд остановился на Харлане, и она много миль изучала его, не подозревая его. И постепенно она начала думать о нем, удивляться, почему он защитил ее от этого человека, Хиггинса, и почему он едет с ней на ранчо Секо. Через некоторое время она дала ответ на свой первый вопрос: Он защитил ее, потому что она бросилась в его объятия, пытаясь вырваться из когтей преследовавшего ее человека — Хиггинса. Она вспомнила, что когда она стояла у окна, наблюдая, как Харлан спешился перед конторой шерифа, он, казалось, произвел на нее благоприятное впечатление. Вот почему, когда она увидела его перед собой на улице, после того как он застрелил Ласкара, она избрала его своим защитником. Это казалось логичным поступком, потому что он ополчился против ее врагов, убив Ласкара, и было разумно предположить, что Ласкар и Хиггинс были в союзе с Девени, что Харлан защитит ее. До сих пор все это казалось чрезвычайно естественным. Именно тогда, когда она начала задаваться вопросом, почему Харлан сейчас с ней, элемент тайны, казалось, стал преобладать. И она была озадачена. Она начала размышлять о Харлане, и ее мысленные усилия в этом направлении прогнали мрачные мысли, которые почти захлестнули ее после того, как стало известно о смерти ее отца. И все же они проехали более десяти миль, прежде чем она заговорила.



CHAPTER VI

CHAIN-LIGHTNING


Turning from Purgatory, after he had dismounted in front of the sheriff's
office, Harlan faced three men who stood just outside of the building,
watching him.

The slightly humorous smile that curved Harlan's lips might have betrayed
his reason for dismounting in front of the sheriff's office, for he had
seen Laskar standing with the two other men. But no man could have told
that he looked at Laskar directly, except Laskar himself, who would have
sworn that Harlan did not remove his gaze from him, once he had slipped
from Purgatory's back.

For Harlan's eyes told nothing. They seemed to be gazing at nothing, and
at everything. For Gage, watching the man, was certain Harlan was looking
directly at him as he grinned, and Deveny, like Laskar, was sure Harlan's
gaze was upon him. And all of them, noting one another's embarrassment,
stood silent, marveling.

And now Deveny discovered that Harlan was watching the three of them
together--a trick which is accomplished by fixing the gaze upon some
object straight in front of one; in this case it was Deveny's collar--and
then including other objects on each side of the center object.

Steady nerves and an inflexible will are required to keep the gaze
unwavering, and a complete absence of self-consciousness. Thus Deveny
knew he was standing in the presence of a man whose poise and
self-control were marvelous; and he knew, too, that Harlan would be aware
of the slightest move made by either of the three; more, he could detect
any sign of concerted action.

And concerted action was what Deveny and Laskar and the sheriff had
planned. And they had purposely dragged Laskar outside, expecting Harlan
would do just as he had done, and as his eyes warned he intended to do.

"I'm after you, Laskar," he said softly.

Laskar stiffened. He made no move, keeping his hands at his sides, where
they had been all the time that had elapsed since Harlan had dismounted.

Laskar's eyes moved quickly, with an inquiring flash in them, toward
Deveny and the sheriff. It was time for Deveny and the sheriff to
precipitate the action they had agreed upon.

But the sheriff did not move. Nor did Deveny change his position. A
queer, cold chill had come over Deveny--a vague dread, a dragging
reluctance--an indecision that startled him and made of his thoughts an
odd jumble of half-formed impulses that seemed to die before they could
become definite.

He had faced gun-fighters before, and had felt no fear of them. But
something kept drumming into his ears at this instant with irritating
insistence that this was not an ordinary man; that standing before him,
within three paces, his eyes swimming in an unfixed vacuity which
indicated preparation for violent action, was Harlan--"Drag" Harlan, the
Pardo two-gun man; Harlan, who had never been beaten in a gunfight.

Could he--Deveny--beat him? Could he, now, with "Drag" Harlan watching
the three of them, could he draw with any hope of success, with the hope
of beating the other's lightning hand on the downward flash to life or
death?

Deveny paled; he was afraid to take the chance. His eyes wavered from
Harlan's; he cast a furtive glance at the sheriff.

Harlan caught the glance, smiled mirthlessly and spoke shortly to Laskar:

"I told you to keep hittin' the breeze till there wasn't any more
breeze," he said. "I ought to have bored you out there by the red rock. I
gave you your chance. Flash your gun!"

"Harlan!"

This was Gage. His voice sounded as though it had been forced out: it was
hoarse and hollow.

Harlan did not move, nor did his eyes waver. There was feeling in them
now: intense, savage, cold. And his voice snapped.

"You're the sheriff, eh? You want to gas, I reckon. Do it quick before
this coyote goes for his gun."

The sheriff cleared his throat. "You're under arrest, Harlan, for killin'
Lane Morgan out there in the desert yesterday."

Harlan's eyes narrowed, his lips wreathed into a feline smile. But he did
not change his position.

"Who's the witness against me?"

"Laskar."

"Has he testified?"

"He's goin' to."

Harlan backed away a little. His grin was tiger-like, a yellow flame
seemed to leap in his eyes. Laskar, realizing at last that he could hope
for no assistance from Gage or Deveny, grew rigid with desperation.

Death was in front of him; he knew it. Death or a deathless fame. The
fates had willed one or the other, and he chose to take the gambler's
chance, the chance he and Dolver and the Chief had refused Lane Morgan.

Deathless fame, the respect and the admiration of every man in the
section was his if he beat "Drag" Harlan to the draw. Forever afterward,
if he beat Harlan, he would be pointed at as the man who had met the
Pardo gunman on even terms and had downed him.

He stepped out a little, away from the front of the building, edging off
from Deveny and Gage so that Harlan would have to watch in two
directions.

Lawson and Rogers, having advanced to a position within a dozen paces of
the group in front of the sheriff's office, now backed away, silent,
watchful. Other men who had been standing near were on the move
instantly. Some dove into convenient doorways, others withdrew to a
little distance down the street. But all intently watched as Laskar
showed by his actions that he intended to accept his chance.

Deveny, too, watched intently. He kept his gaze fixed upon Harlan, not
even glancing toward Laskar. For Deveny's fear had gone, now that the
dread presence had centered its attention elsewhere, and he was
determined to discover the secret of Harlan's hesitating "draw," the
curious movement that had given the man his sobriquet, "Drag." The
discovery of that secret might mean much to him in the future; it might
even mean life to him if Harlan decided to remain in the section.

Harlan had made no hostile movement as yet. He still stood where he had
stood all along, except for the slight backward step he had taken before
Laskar began to move. But he watched Laskar as the latter edged away from
the other men, and when he saw Laskar's eyes widen with the thought that
precedes action, with the gleam that reflects the command the brain
transmutes to the muscles, his right hand flashed downward toward the
hip.

With a grunt, for Harlan had almost anticipated his thoughts, Laskar's
right hand swept toward the butt of his pistol.

But Harlan's hand had come to a poise, just above the stock of his
weapon--a pause so infinitesimal that it was merely a suggestion of a
pause.

It was enough, however, to throw Laskar off his mental balance, and as he
drew his weapon he glanced at Harlan's holster.

A dozen men who watched swore afterward that Laskar drew his gun first;
that it was in his hand when Harlan's bullet struck him. But Deveny knew
better; he knew that Laskar was dead on his feet before the muzzle of his
weapon had cleared the holster, and that the shot he had fired had been
the result of involuntary muscular action; that he had pulled the trigger
after Harlan's bullet struck him, and while his gun had been loosening in
his hand.

For Deveny had seen the bullet from Laskar's gun throw up sand at
Harlan's feet after Harlan's weapon had sent its death to meet Laskar.
And Deveny had discovered the secret of Harlan's "draw." The pause was a
trick, of course, to disconcert an adversary. But the lightning flash of
Harlan's hand to his gun-butt was no trick. It was sheer rapidity, his
hand moving so fast that the eye could not follow.

And Deveny could get no pleasure from his discovery. Harlan had waited
until Laskar's fingers were wrapped around the stock of his pistol before
he had drawn his own, and therefore in the minds of those who had
witnessed the shooting, Harlan had been justified.

Sheriff Gage thought so, too. For, after Laskar's body had been carried
away, Harlan stepped to where the sheriff stood and spoke shortly:

"You wantin' me for this?"

Sheriff Gage shook his head. "I reckon everybody saw Laskar go for his
gun. There was no _call_ for him to go for his gun. If you'd have shot
him without him reachin' for it things would have been different."

Harlan said coldly, "I'm ready for that trial, now."

The sheriff's eyes glowed with some secret significance as they met
Harlan's. He was standing at a little distance from Deveny, and he
deliberately closed an eye at Harlan.

"Trial--hell!" he declared, "you've destroyed the evidence."

Harlan wheeled, to see Deveny standing near. And for an instant as their
eyes met--Harlan's level and cold, Deveny's aflame with a hostility
unmistakable--the crowd which had witnessed the shooting of Laskar again
became motionless, while a silence, portending further violence,
descended over the street.

Then Deveny abruptly wheeled and began to walk across to the First
Chance.

He had not taken many steps, however, when there were sounds of commotion
farther down the street toward the Eating-House--a man cursing and a girl
screaming.

Deveny halted and faced the point from which the sounds came, and a scowl
appeared on his face.

Harlan wheeled, also. And he saw, at a little distance down the street, a
girl running, her hair tossing in a mass around her, her eyes wild with
fright and terror. Behind her came a man, cursing as he ran.

Harlan heard Sheriff Gage curse, too--heard him say:

"That's Lane Morgan's daughter--Barbara! What in hell is she doin' here?"

The girl, not more than a dozen feet ahead of her pursuer, ran straight
toward Harlan. And when--as she drew closer and he saw that she was,
indeed, actually coming toward him--her eyes on him as though she had
singled him out as a protector--he advanced toward her, drawing one of
his guns as he went.

And, grinning as she neared him, he opened his arms wide and she ran
straight into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing, and
talking incoherently. While Harlan, his grin fading as he looked at her
pursuer--who had halted within half a dozen paces of the girl--commanded
lowly:

"You're runnin' plumb into a heap of trouble, mister man. Throw your rope
around the snubbin' post. Then get on your hind legs an' do some
explainin'. What you chasin' this girl for?"

The man reddened, looked downward, then up at Deveny. The latter, a pout
on his lips, his eyes glowing savagely, walked to where Harlan stood with
one arm around the girl, while Lawson, Rogers, Gage, and several other
men advanced slowly and stood near him.




CHAPTER VII

SINGLE-HANDED


Noting the concerted movement toward him, Harlan grinned at Barbara,
gently disengaged himself from her grasp, and urged her toward the door
of the sheriff's office. She made no objection, for she felt that further
trouble impended, and she knew she must not impede any action her rescuer
planned.

Reaching the street a few minutes before, she had noted the preparations
for the swift tragedy that had followed; and despite her wild desire to
escape Deveny's man, she had halted, fascinated by the spectacle
presented by the two men, gambling with death.

She had halted at a little distance, crouching against the front of a
building. And while she had been crouching there, trembling with a new
apprehension, her pursuer had caught her.

She had hardly been aware of him, and his grasp on her arm she had not
resisted, so intense was her interest in what was transpiring. But the
sudden ending of the affair brought again into her consciousness the
recollection of her own peril, and when she saw Deveny cross the street
she broke from the man's restraining grasp and ran to Harlan, convinced
that he--because he seemed to be antagonistic toward the forces arrayed
against her--would protect her.

And now, shrinking into the open doorway of the sheriff's office, she
watched breathlessly, with straining senses, the moving figures in the
drama.

Harlan had backed a little way toward the doorway in which Barbara stood.
The movement was strategic, and had been accomplished with deliberation.
He was facing Lamo's population--at least that proportion of it which was
at home--with the comforting assurance that no part of it could get
behind him.

The gun he had drawn upon the approach of Barbara's pursuer was still in
his right hand. It menaced no one, and yet it seemed to menace everyone
within range of it.

For though the gun was held loosely in Harlan's hand, the muzzle
downward, there was a glow in the man's eyes that conveyed a warning.

The smile on his face, too, was pregnant with the promise of violence. It
was a surface smile, penetrating no deeper than his lips, and behind it,
partially masked by the smile, the men in the group in the street could
detect the destroying passion that ruled the man at this instant.

Deveny, who had approached to a point within a dozen feet of Harlan, came
to a slow, reluctant halt when he caught a glimpse of the strange glow in
Harlan's eyes. All the others, Sheriff Gage included, likewise
halted--most of them at a considerable distance, as their conceptions of
prudence suggested.

Harlan's grin grew ironic as he noted the pause--the concerted rigidity
of Lamo's population.

"Seems there's a heap of folks wantin' to palaver," he said lowly. "An'
no one is crowdin' me. That's polite an' proper. Seems you all sort of
guessed there's plenty of room, an' crowdin' ain't necessary. I'd thank
every specimen to hook his thumbs in the armholes of his vest--same as
though he's a member of the pussy-cafe outfit which I've seen in
Chicago, makin' moon-eyes at girls. If there's any of you ain't got on
vests, why, you can fasten your sky-hooks on your shoulders any way to
suit your idee of safety. Get them up!"

It seemed ludicrous to Barbara, despite the shadow of tragedy that lurked
over it all--the embarrassed manner in which Lamo's citizens complied
with the command, and the spectacle they presented afterward.

Deveny's hands were the last to go up. There was a coldly malignant glare
in his eyes as under Harlan's unwavering gaze he finally raised his hands
and held them, palms outward, as for inspection.

Rogers had complied instantly. There was a smile on his face, faint and
suggestive of grim amusement, for he had been mentally tortured over the
contemplation of Barbara's predicament, and had been unable to think of
any plan by which he might assist her.

Meeder Lawson's face was sullen and full of impotent rage, and he watched
Deveny with a gaze of bitter accusation when he saw that the big man
intended to obey Harlan's order. Barbara's pursuer, having felt Deveny's
angry gaze upon him, and being uncomfortably conscious that Harlan had
not forgotten him, was red of face and self-conscious. He started, and
the red in his face deepened, when Harlan, in the silence which followed
the concerted raising of hands, spoke sharply to him:

"What was you tryin' to corral that girl for? Talk fast or I'll bust you
wide open!"

The man grinned foolishly, shooting a furtive glance at Deveny.

"Why," he said, noting Deveny's scowl, "I reckon it was because I'd took
a shine to her. I was tryin' to cotton up to her on the landin' about the
Eatin'-House, an' she----"

"You lie!"

This was Barbara. Pale, her eyes flashing with indignation, she stepped
down into the street, standing near Harlan.

"That man," Barbara went on, pointing to the red-faced pursuer, "told me
early this morning that Luke Deveny had told him to watch me, that I was
not to leave my room until Deveny came for me. I was a prisoner. He
didn't try to make love to me. I should have killed him."

Speech had broken the tension under which Barbara had been laboring; the
flow of words through her lips stimulated her thoughts and sent them
skittering back to the salient incidents of her enforced confinement;
they brought into her consciousness a recollection of the conversation
she had heard between Meeder Lawson and Strom Rogers, regarding her
father. She forgot Harlan, Deveny, and the others, and ran to Sheriff
Gage.

Gage, a tall, slender man of forty, was pale and uncomfortable as he
looked down at the girl's white, upturned face. He shrank from the
frenzied appeal of her eyes, and he endured the pain of her tightly
gripping fingers on the flesh of his arms without flinching.

"Did--is father _dead_!"

She waited, frantically shaking Gage. And Gage did not answer until his
gaze had roamed the crowd.

Then he said slowly and reluctantly:

"I reckon he's dead. Deveny was tellin' me--he was chargin' this man,
Harlan, with killin' your father."

Barbara wheeled and faced Deveny. Rage, furious and passionate, had
overwhelmed the grief she felt over the death of her father. The shock
had been tremendous, but it had come while she had been leaning out of
the window listening to Rogers and Lawson--when she had lain for many
minutes unconscious on the floor of the room. Therefore the emotion she
experienced now was not entirely grief, it was rather a frantic yearning
to punish the men who had killed her father.

"You charged this man with murdering my father?" she demanded of Deveny
as she walked to him and stood, her hands clenched, her face dead white
and her eyes blazing hate. "You know better. I heard Strom Rogers tell
Meeder Lawson that it was Dolver and Laskar and somebody he called the
'Chief,' who did it. I want to know who those men are; I want to know
where I can find them! I want you to tell me!"

"You're unstrung, Barbara," said Deveny slowly, coolly, a faint smile on
his face. "I know nothing about it. I merely repeated to Gage the word
Laskar brought. Laskar said this man Harlan shot your father. It happened
about a day's ride out--near Sentinel Rock. If Laskar lied, he was paid
for his lying. For Harlan has----"

Deveny paused, the sentence unfinished, for the girl turned abruptly from
him and walked to Harlan.

"That was Laskar--the man you killed just now?"

"Laskar an' Dolver," relied Harlan. "There was three of them your father
said. One got away in the night, leavin' Dolver an' Laskar to finish the
job. I run plumb into them, crossin' here from Pardo. I bored Dolver, but
I let Laskar off, not havin' the heart to muss up the desert with scum
like him."

The girl's eyes gleamed for an instant with venomous satisfaction. Then
she said, tremulously:

"And father?"

"I buried him near the rock," returned Harlan, lowly.

Soundlessly, closing her eyes, Barbara sank into the dust of the street.

Harlan broke the force of her fall with his left hand, supporting her
partially until she collapsed; then, his eyes alight with a cold flame,
he called, sharply, his gaze still on the group of men:

"Get her, Gage! Take her into your place!"

He waited until Gage carried the slack form inside. Then, his shoulders
sagging, the heavy pistol in his right hand coming to a poise, the
fingers of the left hand brushing the butt of the weapon in the holster
at his left hip, the vacuous gleam in his eyes telling them all that his
senses were alert to catch the slightest movement, he spoke, to Deveny:

"I seen that desert deal. It wasn't on the level. I ain't no angel, but
when I down a man I do it fair an' square--givin' him his chance. I sent
that sneak Dolver out--an' that coyote Laskar. It was a dirty, rotten
deal, the way they framed up on Morgan. It's irritated me--I reckon you
can hear my rattles right now. I'm stayin' in Lamo, an' I'm stickin' by
this Barbara girl until you guys learn to walk straight up, like men!"

He paused, and a heavy silence descended. No man moved. A sneer began to
wreathe Harlan's lips--a twisting, mocking, sardonic sneer that expressed
his contempt for the men who faced him.

"Not havin' any thoughts, eh?" he jeered. "There's some guys that would
rather do their fightin' with women, an' their thoughts wouldn't sound
right if they put words around them. I ain't detainin' you no longer. Any
man who thinks it's time to call for a show-down can do his yappin' right
now. Them that's dead certain they're through can mosey along, takin'
care not to try any monkey business!"

He stood, watching, his wide gaze including them all, until, one after
another the men in the group silently moved away. They did not go far.
Some of them merely stepped into near-by doorways, others sauntered
slowly down the street and halted at a little distance to look back.

But no man made a hostile move, for they had seen the tragedy in which
Laskar had figured, and they had no desire to provoke Harlan to express
again the cold wrath that slumbered in his eyes.

Meeder Lawson was the first of Deveny's intimates to leave the group. His
face sullen, his eyes venomous, he walked across the street to the First
Chance, and stood in the doorway, beside Balleau, who had been an
interested onlooker.

Then Strom Rogers moved. He wheeled slowly, flashing an inquiring glance
at Deveny--who still stood motionless. Deveny had lowered his hands--they
were hanging at his sides, the right hand having the palm toward Harlan,
giving eloquent testimony of its owner's peaceable intentions.

Rogers' glance included the out-turned palm, and his lips curved in a
faint smile. The smile held as his glance went to Harlan's face, and for
an instant as the eyes of the two men met, appraisal was the emotion that
ruled in them. Harlan detected in Rogers' eyes a grim scorn of Deveny,
and a malignant satisfaction; Rogers saw in Harlan's eyes a thing that
not one of the men who had faced the man had seen--cold humor.

Then Rogers was walking away, leaving Deveny to face the man who had
disrupted his plans.

Deveny had not changed his position, and for an instant following the
departure of Rogers, there was no word spoken. Then for the first time
since he had dismounted from Purgatory, Harlan's eyes lost their wide,
inclusive vacuity. They met Deveny's fairly, with a steady, direct,
boring intensity; a light in them that resembled the yellow flame that
Deveny had once seen in the eyes of a Mexican jaguar some year before at
a camp on the Neuces.

Deveny knew what the light in Harlan's eyes meant. It meant the presence
of a wild, rending passion, of elemental impulses; it meant that the man
who faced him was eager to kill him, was awaiting his slightest hostile
movement. It meant more. The gleam in Harlan's eyes indicated that the
man possessed that strange and almost uncanny instinct of thought
reading, that he could detect in another's eyes a mental impulse before
the other's muscles could answer it. Also, it meant certain death to
Deveny should he obey the half-formed determination to draw and shoot,
that was in his mind at this instant.

He dropped his lids, attempting to veil the thought from Harlan. But when
he again looked up it was to see Harlan's lips twisting into a cold
smile--to see Harlan slowly sheathing the gun he had held in his right
hand.

And now Harlan was standing before him, both weapons in their holsters.
He and Deveny were facing each other upon a basis of equality. Harlan had
disdained taking advantage.

Apparently, if Deveny now elected to draw and shoot, his chances were as
good as Harlan's.

And yet Deveny knew they were not as good. For Harlan's action in
sheathing his gun convinced Deveny that the man had divined his thoughts
from the expression of his eyes before he had veiled them with the lids,
and he was convinced that Harlan had sensed the chill of dread that had
swept over him at that instant. He was sure of it when he heard Harlan's
voice, low and taunting:

"You waitin' for a show-down?"

Deveny smiled, pallidly. "I don't mind telling you that I _did_ have a
notion that way a moment ago. But I was afraid I might be a little slow.
When you downed Laskar I watched you, trying to learn the secret of your
draw. I didn't learn it, because there is no secret--you're just a
natural gunslinger without a flaw. You're the fastest man with a gun I
ever saw--and I'm taking my hat off to you."

Harlan smiled faintly, but his eyes did not lose their alertness, nor did
the flame in them cool visibly. Only his lips betrayed whatever emotion
he felt. He distrusted Deveny, for he had seen the half-formed
determination in the man's eyes, and his muscles were tensed in
anticipation of a trick.

"You didn't stay here to tell me that. Get goin' with the real talk."

"That's right--I didn't," said Deveny. He was cool, now, and bland,
having recovered his poise.

"Higgins _was_ watching Barbara Morgan at my orders. But I meant no harm
to the girl. I knew she was in town, and I heard there were a few of the
boys that were making plans about her. So I set Higgins to guard her.
Naturally, she thought I meant harm to her."

"Naturally," said Harlan.

Deveny said coolly: "I'll admit I have a bad reputation. But it doesn't
run to women. It's more in your line." He looked significantly at the
other.

"Meanin'?"

"Oh, hell--you know well enough what I mean. You're not such a
law-abiding citizen, yourself. I've heard of you--often. And I've admired
you. To get right down to the point--I could find a place where you'd fit
in just right. We're needing another man--a man of your general size and
character."

Harlan grinned. "I'm thankin' you. An' I sure appreciate what you've
said. You've been likin' me so much that you tried to frame up on me
about sendin' Lane Morgan out."

"That's business," laughed Deveny. "You were an unknown quantity, then."

"But not now--eh?" returned Harlan, his eyes gleaming with a cold humor.
"You've got me sized up right. The yappin' I done about stickin' to
Barbara Morgan wasn't the real goods, eh?"

"Certainly not!" laughed Deveny, "there must be some selfish motive
behind that."

"An' you sure didn't believe me?"

"Of course not," chuckled Deveny, for he thought he saw a gleam of
insincerity in Harlan's eyes.

"Then I've got to do my yappin' all over again," said Harlan. "Now get
this straight. I'm stickin' to Barbara Morgan. I'm runnin' the Rancho
Seco from now on. I'm runnin' it _my_ way. Nobody is botherin' Barbara
Morgan except them guys she wants to have bother her. That lets you out.
You're a rank coyote, an' I don't have no truck with you except at the
business end of a gun. Now take your damned, sneakin' grin over an' wet
it down, or I'll blow you apart!"

Deveny's face changed color. It became bloated with a poisonous wrath,
his eyes gleamed evilly and his muscles tensed. He stood, straining
against the murder lust that had seized him, almost persuaded to take the
slender chance of beating Harlan to his weapon.

"You got notions, eh?" he heard Harlan say, jeeringly. "Well, don't spoil
'em. I'd admire to make you feel like you'd ought to have got started a
week ago."

Deveny smiled with hideous mirthlessness. But he again caught the flame
in Harlan's eyes. He wheeled, saying nothing more, and walked across the
street without looking back.

Smiles followed him; several men commented humorously, and almost
immediately, knowing that this last crisis had passed, Lamo's citizens
resumed their interrupted pleasures.

Harlan stood motionless until Deveny vanished into the First Chance, then
he turned quickly and entered the sheriff's office.




CHAPTER VIII

BARBARA IS PUZZLED


Half an hour later, with Barbara Morgan, on "Billy"--a piebald
pinto--riding beside him, Harlan loped Purgatory out of Lamo. They took a
trail--faint and narrow--that led southward, for Barbara had said that
the Rancho Seco lay in that direction.

Harlan had not seen Deveny or Rogers or Lawson after the scene in front
of the sheriff's office. He had talked for some time with Gage, waiting
until Barbara Morgan recovered slightly from the shock she had suffered.
Then when he had told her that he intended to accompany her to the Rancho
Seco--and she had offered no objection--he had gone on a quest for her
pony, finding him in the stable in the rear of the Eating-House.

So far as Harlan knew, no one in Lamo besides Sheriff Gage had watched
the departure of himself and Barbara. And there had been no word spoken
between the two as they rode away--Lamo becoming at last an almost
invisible dot in the great yawning space they left behind them.

Barbara felt a curious unconcern for what was happening; her brain was in
a state of dull apathy, resulting from shock and the period of dread
under which she had lived for more than a day and a night.

She did not seem to care what happened to her. She knew, to be sure, that
she was riding toward the Rancho Seco with a man whom she had heard
called an outlaw by other men; she was aware that she must be risking
something by accepting his escort--and yet she could not bring herself to
feel that dread fear that she knew any young woman in her position should
feel.

It seemed to her that nothing mattered now--very much. Her father was
dead--murdered by some men--two of whom had been punished by death, and
another--a mysterious person called the "Chief"--who would be killed as
soon as she could find him. That resolution was deeply fixed in her mind.

Her gaze though, after a while, went to Harlan, and for many miles she
studied him without his suspecting. And gradually she began to think
about him, to wonder why he had protected her from the man, Higgins, and
why he was going with her to the Rancho Seco.

She provided--after a while--an answer to her first question: He had
protected her because she had run into his arms in her effort to escape
the clutches of the man who had pursued her--Higgins. She remembered that
while she had been at the window, watching Harlan when he had dismounted
in front of the sheriff's office, he had seemed to make a favorable
impression upon her.

That was the reason, when she had seen him before her in the street, after
he had shot Laskar, she had selected him as a protector. That had seemed
to be the logical thing to do, for he had arrayed himself against her
enemies in killing Laskar, and it was reasonable to suppose--conceding
Laskar and Higgins were leagued with Deveny--that Harlan would protect
her.

It all seemed exceedingly natural, that far. It was when she began to
wonder why Harlan was with her now that an element of mystery seemed to
rule. And she was puzzled.

She began to speculate over Harlan, and her mental efforts in that
direction banished the somber thoughts that had almost overwhelmed her
after the discovery of her father's death. Yet they had ridden more than
ten miles before she spoke.

"What made you decide to ride with me to the Rancho Seco?" she demanded
sharply.

Harlan flashed a grin at her. He was riding a little in advance of her,
and he had to turn in the saddle to see her face.

"I was headin' that way, an' wanted company. It sure gets lonesome ridin'
alone."

She caught her breath at this answer, for it seemed that he had not
revealed the real reason. And she had got her first good look at his
face. It was lean and strong. His eyes were deep-set and rimmed by heavy
lashes and brows, and there was a glow in them as he looked at her--a
compelling fixity that held her. Her own drooped, and were lifted to his
again in sheer curiosity, she thought at first.

It was only when she found herself, later, trying to catch his glance
again that she realized they were magnetic eyes, and that the glow in
them was of a subtle quality that could not be analyzed at a glance.

The girl was alert to detect a certain expression in his eyes--a gleam
that would tell her what she half feared--that the motive that had
brought him with her was like that which had caused Deveny to hold her
captive. But she could detect no such expression in Harlan's eyes, she
could see a quizzical humor in his glances at times, or frank interest,
and there were times when she saw a grim pity.

And the pity affected her strangely. It brought him close to
her--figuratively; it convinced her that he was a man of warm sympathies
in spite of the reputation he held in the Territory.

She had heard her father speak of him--always with a sort of awe in his
voice; and tales of his reckless daring, his Satanic cleverness with a
six-shooter, of his ruthlessness, had reached her ears from other
sources. He had seemed, then, like some evil character of mythology,
remote and far, and not likely to appear in the flesh in her section of
the country.

It seemed impossible that she had fled to such a man for protection--and
that he had protected her; and that she was now riding beside him--or
slightly behind him--and that, to all appearances, he was quite as
respectful toward her as other men. That, she surmised, was what made it
all seem so strange.

Harlan did not seem disposed to talk; and he kept Purgatory slightly in
the lead--except when the trail grew dim or disappeared altogether. Then
he would pull the black horse up, look inquiringly at Barbara, and urge
Purgatory after her when she took the lead.

But there were many things that Barbara wanted to inquire about; and it
was when they were crossing a big level between some rimming hills, where
the trail was broad, that she urged her pony beside the black.

"Won't you tell me about father--how he died?" she asked.

He looked sharply at her, saw that she was now quite composed, and
drawing Purgatory to a walk, began to relate to her the incident of the
fight at Sentinel Rock. His story was brief--brutally brief, she might
have thought, had she not been watching his face during the telling,
noting the rage that flamed in his eyes when he spoke of Dolver and
Laskar and the mysterious "Chief."

It was plain to the girl that he had sympathized with her father; and it
was quite as plain that he now sympathized with her. And thus she
mentally recorded another point in his favor:

He might be a gunman, a ruthless killer, an outlaw of such evil
reputation that men mentioned his name with awe in their voices--but she
_knew_, now, that he had a keen sense of justice, and that the murder of
her father had aroused the retributive instinct in him.

Also, she was convinced that compared to Deveny, Rogers, and Lawson, he
was a gentleman. At least, so far he had not looked at her as those men
had looked at her. He had been with her now for several hours, in a
lonely country where there was no law except his own desires, and he had
been as gravely courteous and considerate as it was possible for any man
to be.

When he finished his story, having neglected to mention the paper he had
removed from one of the cylinders of Morgan's pistol--upon which was
written instructions regarding the location of the gold Morgan had
secreted--Barbara rode for a long time in silence, her head bowed, her
eyes moist.

At last she looked up. Harlan's gaze was straight ahead; he was watching
the trail, where it vanished over the crest of a high ridge, and he did
not seem to be aware of Barbara's presence.

"And father told you to tell me--wanted you to bring the news to me?"

Harlan nodded.

"Then," she went on "your obligation--if you were under any--seems to
have been completed. You need not have come out of your way."

"I was headed this way."

"To the Rancho Seco?" she questioned, astonished.

Again he nodded. But this time there was a slight smile on his lips.

Her own straightened, and her eyes glowed with a sudden suspicion.

"That's odd," she said; "very odd."

"What is?"

"That you should be on your way to the Rancho Seco--and that you should
encounter father--that you should happen to reach Sentinel Rock about the
time he was murdered."

He looked straight at her, noting the suspicion in her eyes. His low
laugh had a hint of irony in it.

"I've heard of such things," he said.

"What?"

"About guys happenin' to run plumb into a murder when they was innocent
of it--an' of them bein' accused of the murder."

It was the mocking light in his eyes that angered her, she believed--and
the knowledge that he had been aware of her suspicion before it had
become half formed in her mind.

"I'm not accusing you!" she declared.

"You said it was odd that I'd be headed this way--after I'd told you all
there was to tell."

"It is!" she maintained.

"Well," he conceded; "mebbe it's odd. But I'm still headin' for the
Rancho Seco. Mebbe I forgot to tell you that your father said I was to
go--that he made me promise to go."

He had not mentioned that before; and the girl glanced sharply at him. He
met the glance with a slow grin which had in it a quality of that
subtleness she had noticed in him before. A shiver of trepidation ran
over her. But she sat rigid in the saddle, determined she would not be
afraid of him. For the exchange of talk between them, and his considerate
manner--everything about him--had convinced her that he was much like
other men--men who respect women.

"There is no evidence that father made you promise to go to the Rancho
Seco."

"There wasn't no evidence that I made any promise to keep that man Deveny
from herd-ridin' you," he said shortly, with a grin. "I'm sure goin' to
the Rancho Seco."

"Suppose I should not wish it--what then?"

"I'd keep right on headin' for there--keepin' my promise."

"Do you always keep your promises?" she asked, mockery in her voice.

"When I make 'em. Usually, I don't do any promisin'. But when I do--that
promise is goin' to be kept. If you ain't likin' my company, ma'am, why,
I reckon there's a heap of trail ahead. An' I ain't afraid of gettin'
lost."

"Isn't that remarkable!" she jeered.

He looked at her with sober eyes. "If we're figurin' on hittin' the
Rancho Seco before night we'll have to quit our gassin' an' do some
travelin'," he advised. "Accordin' to the figures we've got about forty
miles to ride, altogether. We've come about fifteen--an'," he looked at a
silver watch which he drew from a pocket, "it's pretty near two now."

Without further words--for it seemed useless to argue the point upon
which he was so obviously determined--Barbara urged Billy on, taking the
lead.

For more than an hour she maintained the lead, riding a short distance in
advance, and seemingly paying no attention to Harlan. Yet she noted that
he kept about the same distance from her always--though she never
permitted him to observe that she watched him, for her backward glances
were taken out of the corners of her eyes, when she pretended to be
looking at the country on one side or the other.

Harlan, however, noted the glances. And his lips curved into a faint grin
as he rode. Once when he had dropped behind a little farther than usual,
he leaned over and whispered into Purgatory's ear:

"She's sure ignorin' us, ain't she, you black son-of-a-gun! She ain't
looked back here more'n three times in the last five minutes!"

And yet Harlan's jocular mood did not endure long. During those intervals
in which Barbara kept her gaze straight ahead on the trail, Harlan
regarded her with a grave intentness that betrayed the soberness of his
thoughts.

In all his days he had seen no woman like her; and when she had come
toward him in Lamo, with Higgins close behind her, he had been so
astonished that he had momentarily forgotten Deveny and all the rest of
them.

Women of the kind he had met had never affected him as Barbara had
affected him. He had still a mental picture of her as she had come toward
him, with her hair flying in a golden-brown mass over her shoulders; her
wide, fear-lighted eyes seeking his with an expression of appeal so
eloquent that it had sent a queer, thrilling, protective sensation over
him.

And as she rode ahead of him it was the picture she had made _then_ that
he saw; and the emotions that assailed him were the identical emotions
that had beset him when for a brief instant, in Lamo, he had held her in
his arms, with her head resting on his shoulder.

That, he felt, had been the real Barbara Morgan. Her manner now--the
constrained and distant pose she had adopted, her suspicions, her
indignation--all those were outward manifestations of the reaction that
had seized her. The real Barbara Morgan was she who had run to him for
protection and she would always be to him as she had appeared then--a
soft, yielding, trembling girl who, at a glance had trusted him enough to
run straight into his arms.




CHAPTER IX

AN UNWELCOME GUEST


It was late afternoon when Barbara and Harlan--the girl still riding a
little in advance of the man--rode their horses out of a stretch of
broken country featured by low, barren hills and ragged draws, and came
to the edge of a vast level of sage and mesquite that stretched southward
an interminable distance.

The sun was low--a flaming red disk that swam in a sea of ever-changing
color between the towering peaks of two mighty mountains miles
westward--and the sky above the big level upon which Barbara and Harlan
rode was a pale amethyst set in the dull gray frame of the dusk that was
rising from the southern and eastern horizons.

Eastward the gray was pierced by the burning, flaming prismatic streaks
that stretched straight from the cleft in the mountains where the sun was
sinking--the sun seemed to be sending floods of new color into the
streaks as he went, deepening those that remained; tinging it all with
harmonious tones--rose and pearl and violet and saffron blending them
with a giant, magic brush--recreating them, making the whole background
of amethyst sky glow like a huge jewel touched by the myriad colors of a
mighty rainbow.

The trail taken by Barbara Morgan ran now, in a southeasterly direction,
and it seemed to Harlan that they were riding straight into the folds of
a curtain of gauze. For a haze was rising into the effulgent expanse of
color, and the sun's rays, striking it, wrought their magic upon it.

Harlan, accustomed to sunsets--with a matter-of-fact attitude toward all
of nature's phenomena--caught himself admiring this one. So intent was he
that he looked around with a start when Purgatory halted, to find that
Barbara had drawn Billy down and was sitting in the saddle close to him,
watching him, her eyes luminous with an emotion that thrilled Harlan
strangely.

"This is the most beautiful place in the world," she declared in a voice
that seemed to quaver with awe.

"It's sure a beauty," agreed Harlan. "I've been in a heap of places where
they had sunsets, but dump 'em all together an' they wouldn't make an
edge on this display. She's sure a hummer!"

The girl's eyes seemed to leap at his praise.

"I never want to leave this place," she said. "There is nothing like it.
Those two mountains that you see far out into the west--where the sun is
going down--are about forty miles distant. If you will notice, you can
see that there are other mountains--much smaller--connected with them.
They are two small ranges, and they melt into the plains there--and
there."

She pointed to the south and to the north, where the two ranges,
seemingly extending straight westward, merged into the edge of the big
level where Barbara and Harlan sat on their horses.

The two ranges were perhaps a dozen miles apart, separated by a low level
valley through which ran a narrow river, its surface glowing like
burnished gold in the rays of the sinking sun.

Gazing westward--straight into the glow--Harlan noted the virgin wildness
of the immense valley. It lay, serene, slumberous; its salient
features--ridges, low hills, rocky promontories and wooded slopes--touched
by the rose tints that descended upon them; while in the depressions
reigned purple shadows, soft-toned, blending perfectly with the brighter
colors.

With the sunset glow upon it; with the bastioned hills--barren at their
peaks, ridged and seamed--looming clear and definite above the vast
expanse of green, the colossal valley stretched, with no movement in it
or above it--in a vacuum-like stillness that might have reigned over the
world on the dawn of creation's first morning.

Harlan looked covertly at Barbara. The girl's face was pale, and her eyes
were glowing with a light that made him draw a long breath of sympathy
and understanding. But it had been many years since he had felt the
thrill of awe that she was experiencing at this minute.

He knew that presently the spell would pass, and that material things
would exact their due. And the resulting contrast between the beauty of
the picture upon which she was gazing, and the solemn realization of loss
that memory would bring, instantly, would almost crush her.

Therefore he spoke seriously when he caught her looking at him.

"There's sunsets _an'_ sunsets," he said. "They tell me that they're a
heap common in some parts of the world. Wyoming, now--Wyoming prides
herself on sunsets. An' I've heard they have 'em in Italy, an'
France--an' some more of them foreign places--where guys go to look at
'em. But it's always seemed to me that there ain't a heap of sense in
gettin' fussed up over a sunset. The sun has got his work to do; an' he
does it without any fussin'. An' they tell me that it's the same sun that
sets in all them places I've been tellin' you about.

"Well, it's always been my idee that the sun ain't got no compliments due
him--he'll set mighty beautiful--sometimes; an' folks will get awed an'
thrilly over him. But the next day--if a man happens to be ridin' in the
desert, where there ain't any water, he'll cuss the sun pretty
thorough--forgettin' the nice things he said about it once."

Barbara scowled at him.

"You haven't a bit of poetry in your soul!" she charged. "I'm sorry we
stopped to look at the valley or the sun--or anything. You don't--you
can't appreciate the beautiful!"

He was silent as she urged Billy onward. And as they fled southwestward,
with Purgatory far behind, Harlan swept his hat from his head and bowed
toward the mighty valley, saying lowly:

"You're sure a hummer--an' no mistake. But if a man had any poetry in his
soul--why----"

He rode on, gulping his delight over having accomplished what he had
intended to accomplish.

"She'll be givin' it to me pretty regular; an' she won't have time for no
solemn thoughts. They'll come later, though, when she gets to the Rancho
Seco."

It was the lowing of cattle that at last brought to Harlan the conviction
that they were near the Rancho Seco--that and the sight of the roofs of
some buildings that presently came into view.

But they had been riding for half an hour before they came upon the
cattle and buildings, and the flaming colors had faded into somber gray
tones. The filmy dusk that precedes darkness was beginning to settle over
the land; and into the atmosphere had come that solemn hush with which
the wide, open places greet the night.

Barbara had no further word to say to Harlan until they reached a group
of buildings that were scattered on a big level near a river. They had
passed a long stretch of wire fence, which Harlan suspected, enclosed a
section of land reserved for a pasture; and the girl brought her pony to
a halt in front of an adobe building near a high rail fence.

"This is the Rancho Seco," she said shortly. "This is the stable. Over
there is the ranchhouse. Evidently the men are all away somewhere."

She got off the pony, removed the saddle and bridle, carried them into
the stable, came out again, and opened a gate in the fence, through which
she sent "Billy." Then she closed the gate and turned to Harlan, who had
dismounted and was standing at Purgatory's head.

"I thank you for what you have done for me," she said, coldly. "And now,
I should like to know just what you purpose to do--and why you have
come."

Harlan's eyes narrowed as he returned her gaze. He remembered Lane
Morgan's words: "John Haydon is dead stuck on Barbara;" and he had
wondered ever since the meeting in Lamo if Barbara returned Haydon's
affection, or if she trusted Haydon enough to confide in him.

Barbara's attitude toward Haydon would affect Harlan's attitude toward
the girl. For if she loved Haydon, or trusted him enough to confide in
him--or even to communicate with him concerning ordinary details, Harlan
could not apprise her of the significance of his presence at the Rancho
Seco.

For Haydon was unknown to Harlan and Harlan was not inclined to accept
Morgan's praise of him as conclusive evidence of the man's worthiness.
Besides, Morgan had qualified his instructions with: "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."

Harlan did not want to "drift on." Into his heart since his meeting in
Lamo with Barbara--and during the ride to the Rancho Seco--had grown a
decided reluctance toward "drifting." And not even the girl's scorn could
have forced him to leave her at the ranch, unprotected.

But he could not tell her why he could not go. Despite her protests he
must remain--at least until he was able to determine the character of
John Haydon.

A gleam of faint mockery came into his eyes as he looked at Barbara.

"I'm keepin' my promise to your dad--I'm stayin' at the Rancho Seco
because he told me to stay. He wanted me to sort of look out that nothin'
happened to you. I reckon we'll get along."

The girl caught her breath sharply. In the growing darkness Harlan's
smile seemed to hold an evil significance; it seemed to express a thought
that took into consideration the loneliness of the surroundings, the fact
that she was alone, and that she was helpless. More--it seemed to be a
presumptuous smile, insinuating, full of dire promise.

For Harlan was an outlaw--she could not forget that! He bore a reputation
for evil that had made him feared wherever men congregated; and as she
watched him it seemed to her that his face betrayed signs of his
ruthlessness, his recklessness, and his readiness for violence of every
kind.

He might not have killed her father--Rogers and Lawson had acquitted him
of that. But he might be lying about the promise to her father merely for
the purpose of providing an excuse to come to the Rancho Seco. It seemed
to her that if her father had really exacted a promise from him he would
have written to her, or sent her some token to prove the genuineness of
it. There was no visible evidence of Harlan's truthfulness.

"Do you mean to say you are going to stay here--indefinitely?" she
demanded, her voice a little hoarse from the fright that was stealing
over her.

He smiled at her. "You've hit it about right, ma'am."

"I don't want you to stay here!" she declared, angrily.

"I'm stayin', ma'am." His smile faded, and his eyes became
serious--earnest.

"Later on--when things shape themselves up--I'll tell you why I'm
stayin'. But just now----"

She shrank from him, incredulous, a growing fear plain in her eyes. And
before he could finish what he intended to say she had wheeled, and was
running toward the ranchhouse.

He watched until she vanished through an open doorway; he heard the door
slam, and caught the sound of bars being hurriedly dropped into place.
And after that he stood for a time watching the house. No light came from
within, and no other sound.

He frowned slightly, drawing a mental picture of the girl inside,
yielding to the terror that had seized her. Then after a while he walked
down along the corral fence until he came to another building--a
bunkhouse. And for a long time he stood in the doorway of the building,
watching the ranchhouse, afflicted with grim sympathy.

"It ain't so damn' cheerful, at that," he mused. "I reckon she thinks
she's landed into trouble with both feet--with her dad cashin' in like he
did, an' Deveny after her. It sure must be pretty hard to consider all
them things. An' on top of that I mosey along, with a reputation as a
no-good son-of-a-gun, an' scare the wits out of her with my homely mug.
An' I can't tell her why she hadn't ought to be scared. I call that
mighty mean."




CHAPTER X

ON GUARD


The man whose soul held no love of the poetic sat for two or three hours
on the threshold of the bunkhouse door, his gaze on the ranchhouse. He
was considering his "reputation," and he had reached the conclusion that
Barbara Morgan had reason to fear him--if rumor's tongues had related to
her all of the crimes that had been attributed to him. And he knew she
must have heard a great many tales about him, for rumor is a tireless
worker.

And for the first time in his life Harlan regretted that he had permitted
rumor to weave her fabric of lies. For not one of the stories that
luridly portrayed him in the role of a ruthless killer and outlaw was
true.

It was easy enough for him to understand how he had gained that
reputation. He grinned mirthlessly now, as he mentally reviewed a past
which _had_ been rather like the record of a professional man-killer. And
yet, reviewing his past--from the day about five years ago, when he had
shot a Taos bully who had drawn a gun on him with murderous intent, until
today, when he had sent Laskar to his death--he could not remember one
shooting affray for which he could be blamed. As a matter of fact, he
had--by the courts in some instances, and by witnesses in others, where
there were no courts--been held blameless.

There had been men who had seen Harlan draw his weapons with deadly
intent--men who insisted that the man's purpose was plain, to goad an
enemy to draw a weapon, permitting him partially to draw it, and then to
depend upon his superior swiftness and unerring aim. And this theory of
Harlan's character had gone abroad.

And because the theory had been accepted, Harlan's name became associated
with certain crimes which are inseparable from the type of character
which the popular imagination had given him. Strangers--criminals--in
certain towns in the Territory and out of it must have heard with
considerable satisfaction that their depredations had been charged to
Harlan. Only once had Harlan been able to refute the charge of rumor.
That was when, having passed a night in the company of Dave Hallowell,
the marshal of Pardo, word was brought by a stage-driver that "Drag"
Harlan had killed a man in Dry Bottom--a town two hundred miles
north--and that Harlan had escaped, though a posse had been on his trail.

Even when the driver was confronted by Harlan in the flesh he was
doubtful, surrendering grudgingly, as though half convinced that Harlan
had been able to transport himself over the distance from Dry Bottom to
Pardo by some magic not mentioned.

So it had gone. But the terrible record of evil deeds attributed to
Harlan had not affected him greatly. In the beginning--when he had killed
the Taos bully--he had been reluctant to take life; and he had avoided,
as much as possible, company in which he would be forced to kill to
protect himself.

And through it all he had been able to maintain his poise, his
self-control. The reputation he had achieved would have ruined some
men--would have filled them with an ambition to fulfil the specifications
of the mythical terror men thought him. There was a danger there; Harlan
had felt it. There was a certain satisfaction in being pointed out as a
man with whom other men dared not trifle; respect of a fearsome equality
was granted him--he had seen it in the eyes of men, as he had seen an
awed adulation in the eyes of women.

He had felt them all--all the emotions that a real desperado could feel.
He had experienced the impulse to swagger, to pose--really to live the
part that his ill-fame had given him.

But he had resisted those impulses; and the glow in his eyes when in the
presence of men who feared him was not the passion to kill, but a
humorous contempt of all men who abased themselves before him.

On the night he had been with Dave Hallowell, the marshal of Pardo, he
had listened with steady interest to a story told him by the latter. It
concerned the Lamo region and the great basin at which he and Barbara
Morgan had been looking when the girl had accused him of a lack of poetic
feeling.

"I've heard reports about Sunset Valley," Hallowell had said, squinting
his eyes at Harlan. "I've met Sheriff Gage two or three times, an' he's
had somethin' to say about it. Accordin' to Gage, everything ain't on the
surface over there; there's somethin' behind all that robbin' an'
stealin' that's goin' on. There's somethin' big, but it's hid--an' no man
ain't ever been able to find out what it is. But it's somethin'.

"In the first place, Deveny's gang ain't never been heard of as pullin'
off anything anywheres else but in Sunset Valley. As for that, there's
plenty of room in the valley for them without gettin' out of it. But it
seems they'd get out once in a while. They don't--they stay right in the
valley, or close around it. Seems to me they've got a grudge ag'in' them
Sunset Valley ranchers, an' are workin' it off.

"Why? That question has got Gage guessin'. It's got everybody guessin'.
Stock is bein' run off in big bunches; men is bein' murdered without no
cause; no man is able to get any money in or out of the valley--an'
they're doin' other things that is makin' the cattlemen feel nervous an'
flighty.

"They've scared one man out--a Pole named Launski--from the far end. He
pulled stakes an' hit the breeze runnin' sellin' out for a song to a guy
named Haydon. I seen Launski when he clumb on the Lamo stage, headin'
this way, an' he sure was a heap relieved to get out with a whole skin."

Hallowell talked long, and the mystery that seemed to surround Sunset
Valley appealed to Harlan's imagination. Yet he did not reveal his
interest to Hallowell until the latter mentioned Barbara Morgan. Then his
eyes glowed, and he leaned closer to the marshal.

And when Hallowell remarked that Lane Morgan, of the Rancho Seco had
declared he would give half his ranch to a trustworthy man who could be
depended upon to "work his guns" in the interest of the Morgan family,
the slow tensing of Harlan's muscles might have betrayed the man's
emotions--for Hallowell grinned faintly.

Hallowell had said more. But he did not say that word had come to him
from Sheriff Gage--an appeal, rather--to the effect that Morgan had sent
to him for such a man, and that Gage had transmitted the appeal to
Hallowell. Hallowell thought he knew Harlan, and he was convinced that if
he told Harlan flatly that Morgan wanted to employ him for that definite
purpose, Harlan would refuse.

And so Hallowell had gone about his work obliquely. He knew Harlan more
intimately than he knew any other man in the country; and he was aware
that the chivalric impulse was stronger in Harlan than in any man he
knew.

And he was aware, too, that Harlan was scrupulously honest and square,
despite the evil structure which had been built around him by rumor. He
had watched Harlan for years, and knew him for exactly what he was--an
imaginative, reckless, impulsive spirit who faced danger with the steady,
unwavering eye of complete unconcern.

As Hallowell had talked of the Rancho Seco he had seen Harlan's eyes
gleam; seen his lips curve with a faint smile in which there was a hint
of waywardness. And so Hallowell knew he had scattered his words on
fertile mental soil.

And yet Harlan would not have taken the trail that led to the Rancho Seco
had not the killing of his friend, Davey Langan, followed closely upon
the story related to him by the marshal.

Harlan had ridden eastward, to Lazette--a matter of two hundred
miles--trailing a herd of cattle from the T Down--the ranch where he and
Langan were employed.

When he returned he heard the story of the killing of his friend by
Dolver and another man, not identified, but who rode a horse branded with
the L Bar M--which was the Rancho Seco brand.

It was Hallowell who broke the news of the murder to Harlan, together
with the story of his pursuit of Dolver and the other man, and of his
failure to capture them.

There was no thought of romance in Harlan's mind when he mounted
Purgatory to take up Dolver's trail; and when he came upon Dolver at
Sentinel Rock--and later, until he had talked with Lane Morgan--he had no
thought of offering himself to Morgan, to become that trustworthy man who
would "work his guns" for the Rancho Seco owner.

But after he had questioned Laskar--and had felt that Laskar was not the
accomplice of Dolver in the murder of Langan--he had determined to go to
the ranch, and had told Morgan of his determination.

Now, sitting on the threshold of the Rancho Seco bunkhouse, he realized
that his talk with Morgan had brought him here in a different role than
he had anticipated.

From where he sat he had a good view of all the buildings--low,
flat-roofed adobe structures, scattered on the big level with no regard
for system, apparently--erected as the needs of a growing ranch required.
Yet all were well kept and substantial, indicating that Lane Morgan had
been a man who believed in neatness and permanency.

The ranchhouse was the largest of the buildings. It was two stories high
on the side fronting the slope that led to the river, and another
section--in what appeared to be the rear, facing the bunkhouse, also had
a second story--a narrow, boxlike, frowning section which had the
appearance of a blockhouse on the parapet wall of a fort.

And that, Harlan divined, was just what it had been built for--for
defensive purposes. For the entire structure bore the appearance of age,
and the style of its architecture was an imitation of the Spanish type.
It was evident that Lane Morgan had considered the warlike instincts of
wandering bands of Apache Indians when he had built his house.

The walls connecting the fortlike section in the rear with the two-story
front were about ten feet in height, with few windows; and the entire
structure was built in a huge square, with an inner court, or _patio_,
reached by an entrance that penetrated the lower center of the two-story
section in front.

Harlan's interest centered heavily upon the ranchhouse, for it was there
that Barbara Morgan had hidden herself, fearing him.

She had entered a door that opened in the wall directly beneath the
fortlike second story, and it was upon this door that Harlan's gaze was
fixed. He smiled wryly, for sight of the door brought Barbara into his
thoughts--though he was not sure she had been out of them since the first
instant of his meeting with her in Lamo.

"They've been tellin' her them damn stories about me bein' a
hell-raiser--an' she believes 'em," he mused. And then his smile faded.
"An she ain't none reassured by my mug."

But it was upon the incident of his meeting with Barbara, and the odd
coincidence of his coming upon her father at Sentinel Rock, that his
thoughts dwelt longest.

It was odd--that meeting at Sentinel Rock. And yet not so odd, either,
considering everything.

For he had been coming to the Rancho Seco. Before he had reached Sentinel
Rock he had been determined to begin his campaign against the outlaws at
the Rancho Seco. It was his plan to ask Morgan for a job, and to spend as
much of his time as possible in getting information about Deveny and his
men, in the hope of learning the identity of the man who had assisted in
the murder of Langan.

What was odd about the incident was that Morgan should attempt to cross
to Pardo to have his gold assayed at just about the time Harlan had
decided to begin his trip to the Rancho Seco.

Harlan smiled as his gaze rested on the ranchhouse. He was glad he had
met Lane Morgan; he was glad he had headed straight for Lamo after
leaving Morgan. For by going straight to Lamo he had been able to balk
Deveny's evil intentions toward the girl who, in the house now, was so
terribly afraid of him.

He had told Morgan why he was headed toward the Rancho Seco section, but
he had communicated to Morgan that information only because he had wanted
to cheer the man in his last moments. That was what had made Morgan's
face light up as his life had ebbed away. And Harlan's eyes glowed now
with the recollection.

"The damned cuss--how he did brighten up!" he mused. "He sure was a heap
tickled to know that the deck wasn't all filled with dirty deuces."

And then Harlan's thoughts went again to Lamo, and to the picture Barbara
had made running toward him. It seemed to him that he could still feel
her in his arms, and a great regret that she distrusted him assailed him.

He had sat for a long time on the threshold of the bunkhouse door, and
after a time he noted that the moon was swimming high, almost overhead.
He got up, unhurriedly, and again walked to the stable door, looking in
at Purgatory. For Harlan did not intend to sleep tonight; he had
resolved, since the Rancho Seco seemed to be deserted except for his and
Barbara's presence, to guard the ranchhouse.

For he knew that the passions of Deveny for the girl were thoroughly
aroused. He had seen in Deveny's eyes there in Lamo a flame--when Deveny
looked at Barbara--that told him more about the man's passions than
Deveny himself suspected. He grinned coldly as he leaned easily against
the stable door; for men of the Deveny type always aroused him--their
personality had always seemed to strike discord into his soul; had always
fanned into flame the smoldering hatred he had of such men; had always
brought into his heart those savage impulses which he had sometimes felt
when he was on the verge of yielding to the urge to become what men had
thought him--and what they still thought him--a conscienceless killer.

His smile now was bitter with the hatred that was in his heart for
Deveny--for Deveny had cast longing, lustful eyes upon Barbara
Morgan--and the smile grew into a sneer as he drew out paper and tobacco
and began to roll a cigarette.

But as he rolled the cigarette his fingers stiffened; the paper and the
tobacco in it dropped into the dust at his feet; and he stiffened, his
lips straightening, his eyes flaming with rage, his muscles tensing.

For a horseman had appeared from out of the moonlit haze beyond the
river. Rigid in the doorway--standing back a little so that he might not
be seen--Harlan watched the man.

The latter brought his horse to a halt when he reached the far corner of
the ranchhouse, dismounted, and stole stealthily along the wall of the
building.

Harlan was not more than a hundred feet distant, and the glare of the
moonlight shining full on the man as he paused before the door into which
Barbara Morgan had gone, revealed him plainly to Harlan.

The man was Meeder Lawson. Harlan's lips wreathed into a grin of cold
contempt. He stepped quickly to Purgatory, drew his rifle from its saddle
sheath and returned to the doorway. And there, standing in the shadows,
he watched Lawson as the latter tried the door and, failing to open it,
left it and crept along the wall of the building, going toward a window.

The window also was fastened, it seemed, for Lawson stole away from it
after a time and continued along the wall of the house until he reached
the southeast corner. Around that, after a fleeting glance about him,
Lawson vanished.

Still grinning--though there was now a quality in the grin that might
have warned Lawson, had he seen it--Harlan stepped down from the doorway,
slipped into the shadow of the corral fence, and made his way toward the
corner where Lawson had disappeared.