“Cousin Lance!” Dicksie Dunning advanced swiftly into the room. “You are under our own roof, and you are wrong to talk in that way.”
Her cousin stared at her. “Dicksie, this is no place for you!”
“It is when my cousin is in danger of forgetting he is a gentleman.”
“You are interfering with what you know nothing about!” exclaimed Lance angrily.
“I know what is due to every one under this roof.”
“Will you be good enough to leave this room?”
“Not if there is to be any shooting or threats of shooting that involve my cousin.”
“Dicksie, leave the room!”
There was a hush. The cowboys dropped back. Dicksie stood motionless. She gave no sign in her manner that she heard the words, but she looked very steadily at her cousin. “You forget yourself!” was all she said.
“I am master here!”
“Also my cousin,” murmured Dicksie evenly.
“You don’t understand this matter at all!” declared Lance Dunning vehemently.
“Nothing could justify your language.”
“Do you think I am going to allow this railroad company to ruin this ranch while I am responsible here? You have no business interfering, I say!”
“I think I have.”
“These matters are not of your affair!”
“Not of my affair?” The listeners stood riveted. McCloud felt himself swallowing, and took a step backward with an effort as Dicksie advanced. Her hair, loosened by her ride, spread low upon her head. She stood in her saddle habit, with her quirt still in hand. “Any affair that may lead my cousin into shooting is my affair. I make it mine. This is my father’s roof. I neither know nor care anything about what led to this quarrel, but the quarrel is mine now. I will not allow my cousin to plunge into anything that may cost him his life or ruin it.” She turned suddenly, and her eyes fell on McCloud. “I am not willing to leave either myself or my cousin in a false position. I regret especially that Mr. McCloud should be brought into so unpleasant a scene, because he has already suffered rudeness at my own hands–––”
McCloud flushed. He raised his hand slightly.
“And I am very sorry for it,” added Dicksie, before he could speak. Then, turning, she withdrew from the room.
“I am sure,” said McCloud slowly, as he spoke again to her cousin, “there need be no serious controversy over the right-of-way matter, Mr. Dunning. I certainly shall not precipitate any. Suppose you give me a chance to ride over the ground with you again and let us see whether we can’t arrive at some conclusion?”
But Lance was angry, and nursed his wrath a long time.
* * *
CHAPTER XV
THE SHOT IN THE PASS
Dicksie walked hurriedly through the dining-room and out upon the rear porch. Her horse was standing where she had left him. Her heart beat furiously as she caught up the reins, but she sprang into the saddle and rode rapidly away. The flood of her temper had brought a disregard of consequence: it was in the glow of her eyes, the lines of her lips, and the tremor of her nostrils as she breathed long and deeply on her flying horse.
When she checked Jim she had ridden miles, but not without a course nor without a purpose. Where the roads ahead of her parted to lead down the river and over the Elbow Pass to Medicine Bend, she halted within a clump of trees almost where she had first seen McCloud. Beyond the Mission Mountains the sun was setting in a fire like that which glowed under her eyes. She could have counted her heart-beats as the crimson ball sank below the verge of the horizon and the shadows threw up the silver thread of the big river and deepened across the heavy green of the alfalfa fields. Where Dicksie sat, struggling with her bounding pulse and holding Jim tightly in, no one from the ranch or, indeed, from the up-country could pass her unseen. She was waiting for a horseman, and the sun had set but a few minutes when she heard a sharp gallop coming down the upper road from the hills.
All her brave plans, terror-stricken at the sound of the hoof-beats, fled from her utterly. She was stunned by the suddenness of the crisis. She had meant to stop McCloud and speak to him, but before she could summon her courage a tall, slender man on horseback dashed past within a few feet of her. She could almost have touched him as he flew by, and a horse less steady than Jim would have shied under her. Dicksie caught her breath. She did not know this man––she had seen only his eyes, oddly bright in the twilight as he passed––but he was not of the ranch. He must have come from the hill road, she concluded, down which she herself had just ridden. He was somewhere from the North, for he sat his horse like a statue and rode like the wind.
But the encounter nerved her to her resolve. Some leaden moments passed, and McCloud, galloping at a far milder pace toward the fork of the roads, checked his speed as he approached. He saw a woman on horseback waiting in his path.
“Mr. McCloud!”
“Miss Dunning!”
“I could not forgive myself if I waited too long to warn you that threats have been made against your life. Not of the kind you heard to-day. My cousin is not a murderer, and never could be, I am sure, in spite of his talk; but I was frightened at the thought that if anything dreadful should happen his name would be brought into it. There are enemies of yours in this country to be feared, and it is against these that I warn you. Good-night!”
“Surely you won’t ride away without giving me a chance to thank you!” exclaimed McCloud. Dicksie checked her horse. “I owe you a double debt of gratitude,” he added, “and I am anxious to assure you that we desire nothing that will injure your interests in any way in crossing your lands.”
“I know nothing about those matters, because my cousin manages everything. It is growing late and you have a good way to go, so good-night.”
“But you will allow me to ride back to the house with you?”
“Oh, no, indeed, thank you!”
“It will soon be dark and you are alone.”
“No, no! I am quite safe and I have only a short ride. It is you who have far to go,” and she spoke again to Jim, who started briskly.
“Miss Dunning, won’t you listen just a moment? Please don’t run away!” McCloud was trying to come up with her. “Won’t you hear me a moment? I have suffered some little humiliation to-day; I should really rather be shot up than have more put on me. I am a man and you are a woman, and it is already dark. Isn’t it for me to see you safely to the house? Won’t you at least pretend I can act as an escort and let me go with you? I should make a poor figure trying to catch you on horseback–––”
Dicksie nodded naïvely. “With that horse.”
“With any horse––I know that,” said McCloud, keeping at her side.
“But I can’t let you ride back with me,” declared Dicksie, urging Jim and looking directly at McCloud for the first time. “How could I explain?”
“Let me explain. I am famous for explaining,” urged McCloud, spurring too.
“And will you tell me what I should be doing while you were explaining?” she asked.
“Perhaps getting ready a first aid for the injured.”
“I feel as if I ought to run away,” declared Dicksie, since she had clearly decided not to. “It will have to be a compromise, I suppose. You must not ride farther than the first gate, and let us take this trail instead of the road. Now make your horse go as fast as you can and I’ll keep up.”
But McCloud’s horse, though not a wonder, went too fast to suit his rider, who divided his efforts between checking him and keeping up the conversation. When McCloud dismounted to open Dicksie’s gate, and stood in the twilight with his hat in his hand and his bridle over his arm, he was telling a story about Marion Sinclair, and Dicksie in the saddle, tapping her knee with her bridle-rein, was looking down and past him as if the light upon his face were too bright. Before she would start away she made him remount, and he said good-by only after half a promise from her that she would show him sometime a trail to the top of Bridg
er’s Peak, with a view of the Peace River on the east and the whole Mission Range and the park country on the north. Then she rode away at an amazing run, nodding back as he sat still holding his hat above his head.
McCloud galloped toward the pass with one determination––that he would have a horse, and a good one, one that could travel with Jim, if it cost him his salary. He exulted as he rode, for the day had brought him everything he wished, and humiliation had been swallowed up in triumph. It was nearly dark when he reached the crest between the hills. At this point the southern grade of the pass winds sharply, whence its name, the Elbow; but from the head of the pass the grade may be commanded at intervals for half a mile. Trotting down this road with his head in a whirl of excitement, McCloud heard the crack of a rifle; at the same instant he felt a sharp slap at his hat. Instinct works on all brave men very much alike. McCloud dropped forward in his saddle, and, seeking no explanation, laid his head low and spurred Bill Dancing’s horse for life or death. The horse, quite amazed, bolted and swerved down the grade like a snipe, with his rider crouching close for a second shot. But no second shot came, and after another mile McCloud ventured to take off his hat and put his finger through the holes in it, though he did not stop his horse to make the examination. When they reached the open country the horse had settled into a fast, long stride that not only redeemed his reputation but relieved his rider’s nerves.
When McCloud entered his office it was half-past nine o’clock, and the first thing he did before turning on the lights was to draw the window-shades. He examined the hat again, with sensations that were new to him––fear, resentment, and a hearty hatred of his enemies. But all the while the picture of Dicksie remained. He thought of her nodding to him as they parted in the saddle, and her picture blotted out all that had followed.
* * *
CHAPTER XVI
AT THE WICKIUP
Two nights later Whispering Smith rode into Medicine Bend. “I’ve been up around Williams Cache,” he said, answering McCloud’s greeting as he entered the upstairs office. “How goes it?” He was in his riding rig, just as he had come from a late supper.
When he asked for news McCloud told him the story of the trouble with Lance Dunning over the survey, and added that he had referred the matter to Glover. He told then of his unpleasant surprise when riding home afterward.
“Yes,” assented Smith, looking with feverish interest at McCloud’s head; “I heard about it.”
“That’s odd, for I haven’t said a word about the matter to anybody but Marion Sinclair, and you haven’t seen her.”
“I heard up the country. It is great luck that he missed you.”
“Who missed me?”
“The man that was after you.”
“The bullet went through my hat.”
“Let me see the hat.”
McCloud produced it. It was a heavy, broad-brimmed Stetson, with a bullet-hole cut cleanly through the front and the back of the crown. Smith made McCloud put the hat on and describe his position when the shot was fired. McCloud stood up, and Whispering Smith eyed him and put questions.
“What do you think of it?” asked McCloud when he had done.
Smith leaned forward on the table and pushed McCloud’s hat toward him as if the incident were closed. “There is no question in my mind, and there never has been, but that Stetson puts up the best hat worn on the range.”
McCloud raised his eyebrows. “Why, thank you! Your conclusion clears things so. After you speak a man has nothing to do but guess.”
“But, by Heaven, George,” exclaimed Smith, speaking with unaccustomed fervor, “Miss Dicksie Dunning is a hummer, isn’t she? That child will have the whole range going in another year. To think of her standing up and lashing her cousin in that way when he was browbeating a railroad man!”
“Where did you hear about that?”
“The whole Crawling Stone country is talking about it. You never told me you had a misunderstanding with Dicksie Dunning at Marion’s. Loosen up!”
“I will loosen up in the way you do. What scared me most, Gordon, was waiting for the second shot. Why didn’t he fire again?”
“Doubtless he thought he had you the first time. Any man big enough to start after you is not used to shooting twice at two hundred and fifty yards. He probably thought you were falling out of the saddle; and it was dark. I can account for everything but your reaching the pass so late. How did you spend all your time between the ranch and the foothills?”
McCloud saw there was no escape from telling of his meeting with Dicksie Dunning, of her warning, and of his ride to the gate with her. Every point brought a suppressed exclamation from Whispering Smith. “So she gave you your life,” he mused. “Good for her! If you had got into the pass on time you could not have got away––the cards were stacked for you. He overestimated you a little, George; just a little. Good men make mistakes. The sport of circumstances that we are! The sport of circumstances!”
“Now tell me how you heard so much about it, Gordon, and where?”
“Through a friend, but forget it.”
“Do you know who shot at me?”
“Yes.”
“I think I do, too. I think it was the fellow that shot so well with the rifle at the barbecue––what was his name? He was working for Sinclair, and perhaps is yet.”
“You mean Seagrue, the Montana cowboy? No, you are wrong. Seagrue is a man-killer, but a square one.”
“How do you know?”
“I will tell you sometime––but this was not Seagrue.”
“One of Dunning’s men, was it? Stormy Gorman?”
“No, no, a very different sort! Stormy is a wind-bag. The man that is after you is in town at this minute, and he has come to stay until he finishes his job.”
“The devil! That’s what makes your eyes so bright, is it? Do you know him?”
“I have seen him. You may see him yourself if you want to.”
“I’d like nothing better. When?”
“To-night––in thirty minutes.” McCloud closed his desk. There was a rap at the door.
“That must be Kennedy,” said Smith. “I haven’t seen him, but I sent word for him to meet me here.” The door opened and Kennedy entered the room.
“Sit down, Farrell,” said Whispering Smith easily. “Ve gates?”
“How’s that?”
“Wie geht es? Don’t pretend you can’t make out my German. He is trying to let on he is not a Dutchman,” observed Whispering Smith to McCloud. “You wouldn’t believe it, but I can remember when Farrell wore wooden shoes and lighted his pipe with a candle. He sleeps under a feather-bed yet. Du Sang is in town, Farrell.”
“Du Sang!” echoed the tall man with mild interest as he picked up a ruler and, throwing his leg on the edge of the table, looked cheerful. “How long has Du Sang been in town? Visiting friends or doing business?”
“He is after your superintendent. He has been here since four o’clock, I reckon, and I’ve ridden a hard road to-day to get in in time to talk it over with him. Want to go?”
Kennedy slapped his leg with the ruler. “I always want to go, don’t I?”
“Farrell, if you hadn’t been a railroad man you would have made a great undertaker, do you know that?” Kennedy, slapping his leg, showed his ivory teeth. “You have such an instinct for funerals,” added Whispering Smith.
“Now, Mr. Smith! Well, who are we waiting for? I’m ready,” said Kennedy, taking out his revolver and examining it.
McCloud put on his new hat and asked if he should take a gun. “You are really accompanying me as my guest, George,” explained Whispering Smith reproachfully. “Won’t it be fun to shove this man right under Du Sang’s nose and make him bat his eyes?” he added to Kennedy. “Well, put one in your pocket if you like, George, provided you have one that will go off when sufficiently urged.”
McCloud opened the drawer of the table and took from it a revolver. Whispering Smith reached out his hand for the gun
, examined it, and handed it back.
“You don’t like it.”
Smith smiled a sickly approbation. “A forty-five gun with a thirty-eight bore, George? A little light for shock; a little light. A bullet is intended to knock a man down; not necessarily to kill him, but, if possible, to keep him from killing you. Never mind, we all have our fads. Come on!”
At the foot of the stairs Whispering Smith stopped. “Now I don’t know where we shall find this man, but we’ll try the Three Horses.” As they started down the street McCloud took the inside of the sidewalk, but Smith dropped behind and brought McCloud into the middle. They failed to find Du Sang at the Three Horses, and leaving started to round up the street. They visited many places, but each was entered in the same way. Kennedy sauntered in first and moved slowly ahead. He was to step aside only in case he saw Du Sang. McCloud in every instance followed him, with Whispering Smith just behind, amiably surprised. They spent an hour in and out of the Front Street resorts, but their search was fruitless.
“You are sure he is in town?” asked Kennedy. The three men stood deliberating in the shadow of a side street.
“Sure!” answered Whispering Smith. “Of course, if he turns the trick he wants to get away quietly. He is lying low. Who is that, Farrell?” A man passing out of the shadow of a shade tree was crossing Fort Street a hundred feet away.
“It looks like our party,” whispered Kennedy. “No, stop a bit!” They drew back into the shadow. “That is Du Sang,” said Kennedy; “I know his hobble.”
* * *
CHAPTER XVII
A TEST
Du Sang had the sidewise gait of a wolf, and crossed the street with the choppy walk of the man out of a long saddle. Being both uncertain and quick, he was a man to slip a trail easily. He travelled around the block and disappeared among the many open doors that blazed along Hill Street. Less alert trailers than the two behind him would have been at fault; but when he entered the place he was looking for, Kennedy was so close that Du Sang could have spoken to him had he turned around.
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