"Little fool of an Eastern girl!" she exploded, a few miles farther on. "If she did come out here and get lost and if he did find her, and if—she'd never make him happy, even if he did marry her! But that Mrs. Endicott—I like her." She pulled up abruptly upon the very edge of the bad lands and gazed out over the pink and black and purple waste. Her brow drew into a puzzled frown. "I wonder," she whispered, "I wonder if she did know I was just crazy about her Texan?" And, with the question unanswered, she touched the bay mare with her spurs and headed her down a long black ridge that extended far into the bad lands.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVII
SOME SHOOTING
When the Texan left Cass Grimshaw he headed due north. He rode leisurely—light-heartedly. The knowledge that Alice was safe at Cinnabar Joe's left his mind free to follow its own bent, and its bent carried it back to the little cabin on Red Sand, and the girl with the blue-black eyes. Most men would have concentrated upon the grim work in hand—but not so the Texan. He was going to kill Purdy because Purdy needed killing. By his repeated acts Purdy had forfeited his right to live among men. He was a menace—a power for harm whose liberty endangered the lives and happiness of others. His course in hunting down and killing this enemy of society needed no elaboration nor justification. It was a thing to be done in the course of the day's work. The fact that Purdy knew the ground, and he did not, and that the numerical odds were four to one against him, bothered him not at all. If others of the same ilk had seen fit to throw in with Purdy they must abide the consequences.
So his thoughts were of the girl, and his lips broke into a smile—not the twisted smile that had become almost habitual with him, but a boyish smile that caused a fanlike arrangement of little wrinkles to radiate from the corners of his eyes, and the eyes themselves to twinkle with mirth. As men of the open are prone to do, he voiced his thoughts as they came: "She sure give me to onderstand last night that runnin' off with other men's wives is an amusement that wouldn't never meet her popular approval. It's, what do the French call it—a faux pas that's not only frowned on, but actually scowled at, an' made the excuse for numerous an' sundry barbed shafts of sarcasm an' caustic observations of a more or less personal application, all of which is supposed to make a man feel like he'd not only et the canary, but a whole damn buzzard—an' wish he hadn't lived to survive doin' it." The man glanced up at the sun. "Time I was gettin' outside of this lunch she packed up for me—chances are I won't want to stop an' eat it after awhile." Dismounting, he seated himself with his back against a rock and unrolled the sandwiches. "She made 'em," he observed to Blue, "regular light bread, an' good thick ham between." He devoured the sandwich slowly, and reached for another. "Cass said to make her have me," he smiled; "hell of a lot he knows about women, but—the dope's right, at that. Boy, those eyes! An' that hair, an'—an', oh, the whole woman of her! If a man had a girl like that to go home to—an' she loved him—an' he knew she was thinkin' about him—an' pullin' for him to—to make good! There wouldn't be nothin' to it—he'd just naturally have to make good. Janet McWhorter—Janet Benton—Mrs. Tex Benton—Mrs. Horatio Benton—hell! I hope she don't go in for the Horatio part. It's almost as bad as Winthrop Adams Endicott! Tex is better—if she ever thinks to inquire about my other name I'll tell her it's Mike, or else I'll go plumb to the other extreme an' call it Percy or Reginald. I ain't got her yet—but believe me! She's goin' to have a war on her hands till I do get her!
"I'll just admit that she'll marry me—what then? It's time I was kind of takin' inventory. Here's what she gets: One cow-hand an' outfit—includin' one extra saddle horse, a bed-roll, an' a war-bag full of odds an' ends of raiment; some dirty, an' some clean; some tore, an' some in a fair state of preservation. Eight hundred an' forty dollars in cash—minus what it'll take to square me in Timber City. An'—an'—that's all! She ain't goin' to derive no hell of a material advantage from the union, that's sure. But, if I've still got my job it ain't so bad to start off with. Other assets, what we used to call incorporeal hereditaments back in law school—fair workin' knowledge of the cattle an' horse business. Health—good. Disposition—um-m-m, kind, to murderous. Habits—bad, to worse. Let's see: smokin'—that's all right: chewin'—prob'ly be allowable if indulged in out doors only. Swearin'—prob'ly won't be an issue till the kids get old enough to listen. Gamblin'—prob'ly be limited to poker—friendly games an' pifflin' limit. Drinkin'—let's see, the only year since I can remember I don't drink nothin' I quit better than eight hundred dollars to the good—first time I ever had eight hundred dollars all at once in my life. What happens? Get to drinkin' for a half a day, an' Bing! Off comes a hundred, maybe two hundred to pay up for the hell I raised! Does it pay? Not for a married man! Not for me! An' besides, what was it she said when I turned down the drink she offered me? She said, 'I'm glad—I hate the stuff.'" He paused, smiling reminiscently, "drinkin's lots of fun—but, a man's got to pay for his fun—more ways than one, he's got to pay. If it'll make her happy to not drink, an' onhappy to drink—the way I look at it, it's a damned mean man that would pay for his own belly-wash with his wife's happiness! That about concludes the takin' stock, then: Drinkin'—once! Drinkin'—twice! Drinkin'—three times—an' out! I'm a non-drinker, a teetotaller, a pop-lapper, an' a grape-juice swizzler! At that, if I'd known that last drink I had back there in Timber City was goin' to be the very last doggone drink I was ever goin' to get, I'd kind of strung it along a little—sort of sipped it slow an' solemn as become an obsequy. Instead of which, I tossed it off light-hearted, casual, even what you might call flippant—an' it's the last drink I was ever goin' to have!"
He rose, brushed a stray crumb or two from his shirt, and mounted: "Come on, Blue, let's get this stuff over with, an' wash our hands, an' hit for Red Sand. Cass says Cinnabar Joe's place ain't only about four miles above McWhorter's."
Thirty minutes later the Texan slowed his horse to a walk. Rock-fragments appeared, dotting the surface of ridges and coulees. Small at first, these fragments increased in size and number as the man pushed northward. He knew from Cass Grimshaw's description that he was approaching the rendezvous of Purdy and his gang. Far ahead he could see the upstanding walls of rock that marked the entrance to the gorge or crater which marked the spot where some titanic explosion of nature had shattered a mountain—shattered it, and scattered its fragments over the surrounding plain. But the Texan was not thinking of the shattered mountain, nor of the girl on Red Sand. He hitched his belt, glanced at the revolver in its holster, and slipping his hand beneath his shirt, made sure that Long Bill's six-gun lay ready to his hand. He proceeded slowly, pausing at frequent intervals to scan the rock-dotted plain. The mouth of the gorge showed distinctly, now. He pulled up his horse and studied the ground. He decided to dismount and proceed on foot—to work his way from rock-fragment to rock-fragment. A slight sound caused him to glance swiftly to the left. Not fifty feet away the malevolent face of Purdy stared at him above the barrels of two six-guns. Directly before him he saw another man, and to the right two more. And every man had him covered. His eyes returned to Purdy, and his lips twisted into their cynical grin. "Well—why in hell don't you shoot?"
"Want to git it over with in a hurry, do you?" sneered the outlaw. "Well I don't! I'm goin' to git you all right, but I'm goin' to take my time to it. When you skipped out a year back fer fear of what I'd do to you, you'd ought to stayed away."
The Texan laughed: "Just as big a damned fool as ever, Purdy. Just as big a four-flusher, too. You better shoot while you've got the chance. 'Cause if you don't I'll kill you, sure as hell."
Purdy sneered: "Gittin' in yer bluff right up to the last, eh? Thought you could sneak up an' git me when I wasn't lookin', eh? Thought—" The sentence was never finished. The Texan's expression suddenly changed. His eyes fixed wildly upon a point directly behind Purdy and he cried out in sudden alarm:
"Don't kill him, Cass! He's mine!"
Like a flash, Purdy whirled, and like a flash the Texa
n was out of his saddle and behind a rock. And as Jennie had predicted, he hit the ground a-shootin'. His own horse had shielded him from the others whose attention had been momentarily diverted to their leader. Instantly Purdy discovered the ruse—but too late. As he whirled again to face the Texan, the latter's gun roared, and one of Purdy's guns crashed against a rock-fragment, as its owner, his wrist shattered, dived behind his rock with a scream of mingled rage and pain. Three times more the Texan shot, beneath the belly of his horse, and the two outlaws to the right pitched forward in crumpled heaps and lay motionless. Frenzied by the noise, the big blue roan plunged blindly forward. The man in front made a frantic effort to get out of his way, failed, and the next moment, crashed backward against a rock-fragment from which he ricocheted from sight while the great blue roan galloped on, reins flying, and stirrups wildly lashing his sides.
"That leaves just the two of us, Purdy," drawled the Texan from the shelter of his rock, as he reloaded his gun.
A vicious snarl from the hiding place of the outlaw was the only answer.
"I told you you was a fool not to shoot while you had the chance. I'm goin' to get you, now. But, seein' that you wasn't in no hurry about it, I won't be neither. There's quite a few things I want you to hear—things you ought to know for the good of your soul."
"You don't dast to git me!" came exultingly, from behind Purdy's rock, "if you do, what'll become of her—the pilgrim's woman? She's right now layin' tied an' gagged in a mud crack where you nor no one else won't never find her. What'll become of her, if you git me?"
The Texan grinned to himself, and after a moment of silence, called hesitatingly: "Say, Purdy, you wouldn't do that! Wouldn't let a woman die like that without tellin' where she is."
"The hell I won't!"
"Come on, Purdy, tell me where she is? You might as well. If I get you, what's the use of leavin' her there to die? An', if you get me, why you'll have her anyway."
A sneering laugh answered him: "You don't dast to git me—an' leave her where she's at!"
The Texan's voice hardened: "Oh, yes I do, Purdy. 'Cause I know, an' you know, that she's safe an' sound at Cinnabar Joe's—an' she'll stay there till Cinnabar can get word to her husband."
A volley of oaths greeted the statement: "Cinnabar don't dast to open his yap! He'll go up fer the rest of his life if he does. I'll fix him!"
"You won't fix no one, Purdy. You're goin' to hell from here. An' whatever you've got on Cinnabar you'll take with you. When I told you to tell me where the girl was I was just givin' you a chance to do one decent thing before you cashed in—but you couldn't do it, Purdy. There ain't a decent thing in you to do. Why, even Long Bill Kearney was a man fer about a second before he died."
"What do you mean—Long Bill—died?"
"Ask him," answered the Texan grimly, "you an' him will be close neighbours—wherever you're goin'." Inadvertently the Texan leaned a little to one side, as he shifted his position. There was a quick report, and a bullet tore through a loose fold of his shirt sleeve. "Pretty fair shootin', Purdy," he drawled, "little bit wide—you'd have nicked me if you'd held in against the rock."
So intently did each man watch the other that neither noted the four men who approached stealthily from rock to rock and finally crouched behind an irregular buttress of rock only a short pistol shot away. Their vantage point did not permit any view of the man who had been knocked down by the galloping horse nor of the contestants themselves, but the exchange of shots could be followed with ease and accuracy.
Cass Grimshaw nudged Endicott and pointed to the bodies of the outlaws: "He got two," he whispered, with grim approval. "An' he got 'em right out in the open. They must have seen him comin' an' laid for him before he got to their hang-out."
"Hey, Tex," called Purdy after a long interval, "we ain't goin' to git one another peckin' away like this behind these rocks."
"No—we ain't goin' to git one another—but I'm goin' to get you—like that!" He fired as he spoke and his bullet chipped the rock and tore through Purdy's hat brim. "Missed, By Grab! But, that pays up for puttin' a hole in my shirt. You was a fool for fallin' for that old gag I put over on you!"
"An' I wouldn't of fell fer it neither, if it hadn't of be'n fer luck—you outlucked me—if you'd of said anyone else except Cass, I wouldn't of fell fer it."
"That wasn't luck, Purdy—that was brains. If I figured on murderin' a man tonight—an' he knew it—do you suppose I wouldn't jump quick if I thought he was sneakin' up behind me with a gun? You bet I would!"
"Murderin'!" Purdy's voice sounded shrill with a quavering note of fear. "What—what do you mean—murderin'?"
"Why, I run across Cass awhile back. I told him I was huntin' you an' he said I'd find you an' three more over here. Said you an' them had planned to bump him an' Bill Harlow off tonight, an' you was busy arrangin' the details. He wanted to come along—him an' Bill—but I told him they wasn't no use—if they was only you an' three more like you, I could handle you myself. Him an' Bill are goin' to ride over after awhile an' see if I need any help—but I don't do I, Purdy?"
The Texan's words were drowned in a perfect tirade of curses. Purdy's voice was shrill with fear. "I've be'n double-crossed! It's a lie! Everyone's agin me! I ain't never had no show!" The voice trailed off in a whine. A few moments of silence followed, and then above the edge of Purdy's rock appeared a white handkerchief tied to the end of a gun-barrel. Taking careful aim, the Texan fired. The white flag disappeared and the gun struck the rocks with a ring of steel.
"You shot at a white flag!" screamed Purdy.
"You're damn right I did! An' I'll shoot at the low-lived pup that tried to hide behind it too. My God, Purdy! No head—no guts! The only things about you that's a man is your pants, an' shirt, an' hat—an' I spoilt the hat!"
"Listen, Tex, listen!" the man's voice was frantic with appeal. "Let's make medicine. You c'n have the pilgrim's woman—I don't want her—I only wanted the reward. I was only kiddin' about bumpin' you off! Honest I was! Listen! Let me go, Tex! Let me git away! Cass has got me framed-up! I aimed to quit him an' turn straight! Listen—they's a girl, Tex. Over on Red Sand—I give her my word I'd quit the horse game an' start an outfit. Listen—I——"
"Who is she?" the voice of the Texan cut in like chilled steel.
"McWhorter's girl——"
"You're a damned liar!"
"D'you know her?" the words came haltingly.
"Some," answered the Texan, drily, "she an' I are goin' to be married tomorrow." The words had been uttered with the deliberate intent of taunting Purdy, but even the Texan was not prepared for the manifestation of insane rage that followed.
"You lie! Damn you! Damn you! You've always beat me! Yer beatin' me now! You son of a—, take that!" With the words he leaped from behind his rock and emptied his gun, the bullets thudding harmlessly against the Texan's barrier, and instantly he was behind his rock again.
Cass Grimshaw grinned at the others. "He's baitin' him—prob'ly be'n baitin' him fer an hour till Purdy's gone plumb mad."
"De Injun she would stake um out an' build de leetle fire on hees belly. But A'm t'ink dat hurt worse lak Tex do it."
Endicott gazed in white-lipped fascination upon the scene. "Let's make him surrender and turn him over to the authorities," he whispered.
Grimshaw shook his head: "No—not him. If you knew him like I do, you wouldn't say that. By God, I turned one man over to the authorities—an' they give him a year! An' when he got out I give him what he had comin'. Think, man what he'd of done to your wife——"
The sentence was cut short by the sound of galloping hoofs. All four craned their necks for sight of the rider. Grimshaw and Bill Harlow drew their guns, expecting to see the fourth man of Purdy's gang come rushing to the aid of his leader. But not until the rider was within a hundred feet of the two combatants did they catch sight of her. At the same instant they saw the Texan, hat in hand, frantically wave her back. Janet McWhorter saw him, too, and p
ulled the bay mare to her haunches at the same instant a shot rang out and Purdy's bullet ripped the Texan's hat from his hand. Almost before her horse came to a stop, the girl's gun was in her hand and she sat—tense—expectant.
With glittering eyes fixed upon the girl, Purdy laughed a wild shrill laugh, that echoed among the rocks like a sound from hell. The words of the Texan burned like words of living fire. "Goin' to be married tomorrow!" Deliberately he raised his gun and fired—just at the instant the bay mare threw up her head with a nervous jerk to rid her mouth of the feel of the cruel spade bit. The next second she reared high and crashed to the ground carrying her rider with her. With a loud cry the Texan sprang to his feet and started for the girl, and at the same moment the horse-thief that the big blue roan had knocked senseless among the rocks rose to his feet and levelling his gun at the running man, fired. At the sound of the report the Texan staggered, turned half-way round and fell sprawling among the rocks. Purdy leaped to his feet and, gun in hand, started for the prostrate Texan. The rock-ribbed valley became a roar of noise. Janet, one leg pinned in the stirrup, fired across the body of her horse. Fired swiftly and accurately. The running Purdy staggered this way and that, drew himself stiffly erect, threw his hands high above his head and spun around like a top, and as the sound of the girl's last shot died, pitched forward and lay very still.
From the rock buttress to the left, Janet saw men running toward her. She could not tell whether they were friends or foes—it mattered not—her gun was empty. At thought of her gun, she gave vent to a pitiful little cry and covered her face with her hands. Then the men were at her side pulling at the body of her horse. Her leg was freed and someone stood her upon her feet. She lowered her hands and stared into the bearded face of Cass Grimshaw!
"Good shootin', sis!" he patted her shoulder gently, "why, what's the matter? D'ye think you missed him—look!" he pointed to the body of Purdy.
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