“And they let you ride by without knocking you over?” jeered Bundy. “What can those boys be thinking of!”
“Mr. Bundy has just offered to buy out my interest here,” said Lorna quickly, anxious to turn the tide of talk. “He says that—”
“Don’t sell,” said Dorn. “Not to Mike Bundy. Not until you’ve talked with me anyhow.”
“One of these days, Dorn,” said Bundy, his voice cold and deadly, “you’re going to dig yourself a grave with that tongue of yours.” To Lorna he said, thoroughly businesslike: “Remember that the place is mortgaged to me for twenty thousand dollars and that I’ve offered you five thousand spot cash for your interest. If Dorn here wants to help, remind him that talk is pretty cheap but that to see my bet will cost him twenty-five thousand. I think you’ll find him tucking his tail between his legs. Good night, Miss Kent. I’ll be running in again soon.”
He took up his spurs from the floor and went out. Dorn, puzzled as MacArthur had been before him, stared frowningly after the departing, stalwart figure. Bundy carried himself into the outer night with his characteristic near-swagger, like a conqueror.
“You would say off-hand that twenty-five thousand is more than Palm Ranch is worth,” he said thoughtfully.
Cap’n Jinks exclaimed explosively: “If Mike Bundy offers twenty-five, Lorny here’s got a right to ask fifty! Mike Bundy’s a skunk an’ a t’rant’ler an’ a egg-suckin’ houn dawg that never spent a dollar yet that he didn’t figger he was cheatin’ somebody out’n his eye teeth. I don’t git this play of his; soun’s crazy to me; but you c’n bet all you got that he’s spreadin’ himself to cut Lorny’s throat. Take it from Ashbury Jinks, that knows.”
“I’ve got an idea,” began Bill Dorn slowly, only to be cut short by Cap’n Ashbury Jinks.
“Say!” He smote his bony old thigh, beating out a puff of dust that looked ghostly in the lamplight. “I got it! Bundy’s foxed ’em ag’in! Ain’t he forever doin’ it? He’s led the crowd o’ suckers ’way off to the Blue Smokes to stake their claims, an’ I’ll bet a turkey gobbler ag’in an empty jug that the gold’s right here on this ranch!”
They looked at him soberly. But Bill Dorn shook his head.
“No go, Cap. The gold’s up there all right. He might fool a big part of that mob, but there are men there who know, and they’re sure. No, it’s something else. And I think maybe I’ve got it figured out. If Miss Kent were in a position to spend some money—But let’s lay the question over for a bit. Tomorrow’s another day, and I want to sleep on this thing before I say anything further.”
“Sleep’s always a good idea,” observed the sheriff, and stood up. “Lorna must be clean tuckered. She’s had quite a house warming and we better call it a day. I’m drifting along.” He glanced at the two other men. “Staying here, Jinks?”
“Shore I am. Firs’, I’ve sorta adopted Lorny; she minds me fine already. Nex’, she needs some sort of chappyrone; me, I’m it. I tried to scare up an Injun woman for comp’ny, like Bill said, but no luck for tonight. Josefa Morales’ll be over mañana, but tonight I’ll stick.”
Lorna looked gratefully at Bill Dorn.
“I’ll be so glad to have another woman here with me. You think of everything, don’t you?” she said smilingly.
“Speaking of house warming, also of another woman here,” said Dorn, “I think there are still other folks coming pretty pronto. The young Villagas rode into camp at the Blue Smokes just when I did. They were staking their claims in the half dark when I left. From something which Diana said, and from what I know of that young lady’s impulsive temperament, I fancy she and her brothers are on the way, following me pretty close.”
“The young Villagas?” repeated Lorna questioningly.
“They’re your next door neighbors, and fine folks, muy Caballeros. Rancho Villaga is only about fifteen miles from here, off to the northeast. There are the two brothers, Juan and Ramon, and their sister Diana. You and she are bound to be friends.”
“I have felt so utterly friendless these last few days,” said Lorna in a small voice. “And now it seems that all of a sudden I am being blessed—”
“There they come now,” said the sheriff.
They listened to the clop of horses’ hoofs breaking the outside silence abruptly when they hammered on the packed ground about the corrals. The hoofbeats ceased suddenly when the horses were pulled in, and voices replaced them. Then the voices died away and again it was very still on the Rancho de Las Palmas.
“They met Bundy, no doubt,” said Dorn. “Bundy and Smith and Fontana.”
Several minutes passed before there was any sound, then the hoofbeats came on and ringing out above that drumming sound rose young voices.
“It’s the Villagas all right,” said Dorn.
“Will you open the door for them?” asked Lorna. “You know them.”
As gaily jingling spurs came up the steps, Dorn opened the door. First to come in was the vivid Diana Villaga. Her big black eyes sparkled in the lamplight, the enormous silver buckle in the red band of her wide black hat gleamed like a jewel. Close behind her came her two good looking brothers, their eyes drawn swiftly to the new girl.
“Oh, hello, Don Beel!” cried Diana, and as though she hadn’t seen him for a long time gave him both her gauntleted little hands. For a space of perhaps two seconds she regarded him strangely; he could make nothing of the midnight mystery of her eyes, and yet found her glance queerly disquieting. Then she hurried toward Lorna, her two hands again outstretched. “You poor dear!” she said sympathetically in that warmly husky voice of hers. “I am so sorry for you. Your aunt, oh, I loved her! And to have her gone away from us, if it saddens me so it must break your heart. Will you please—” Dramatic in everything she did, Diana Villaga was never more dramatic than now. She jerked away from Lorna, whipping back as from a scorpion.
“She is not Lorna Kent!” Her voice rang out as clear as a bell, resonant with accusation. “That one? No. No, I tell you, and no and no and no some more! The dancing girl from Nacional, no? Well, she is not Lorna Kent at all but a—What do you call it? An impostor.”
“Diana!” said Dorn out of an electric silence. “What the devil are you driving at? How do you know anything about her? What do you know of Lorna Kent anyhow?”
Dark Diana made a piquant face of distaste.
“La Señora Kent, I liked her and she was my friend,” she retorted. “I came sometimes to spend an afternoon with her. She had a niece, yes. The last time I came, only two weeks or three ago, she told me much about her. She showed me even her picture. I said, ‘Pero, Señora, how dark she is! Dark like me!’ And this one?” Diana laughed coolly and went to the door. “Open it for me,” she commanded her brother Juan who stood nearest. He, like Ramon, was looking at the girl who had said she was Lorna Kent, and in his expression as in Ramon’s was only frank admiration of beauty.
Juan started and opened the door. Diana ran through, calling back, “Good night, everybody. Oh, what great big fools men are! Come, Juan; come, Ramon; it is late.”
The two boys bowed, suddenly grown stiff, and withdrew. The door closed after them; spurs jingled down the steps. The three men left in the room turned to the girl. She seemed struck speechless.
“Look here!” snapped Bill Dorn. “Are you an impostor impersonating Lorna Kent? Or is Diana Villaga crazy?”
“If you say another word to me I’ll bite you!” the girl flared out.
“Dammit!” said Bill Dorn.
“Oh, darn!” said the girl, and fled the room and slammed the door good and hard.
Dorn, puzzled as ever a man was, looked as though for help to Sheriff MacArthur, from him to old Cap’n Jinks. MacArthur’s face was like a blank wall; Jinks was grinning like a withered old apple on a shelf in the winter sunshine. Dorn promptly stalked to the closed door and rapped on it good and hard.
; “Lorna!” he called commandingly. “Open up. You’ve got to tell me whether you are Lorna Kent or not!”
There was a silence, then a voice as tense as the taut quivering string of a violin:
“I’m Lady Macbeth and the Mother of Monsters, and you can g-go to—to thunder!”
“She forgot to put in the Queen o’ Sheeby,” chuckled old Jinks.
“G’night, boys,” said the sheriff hurriedly, and grabbed his hat. “I’m getting out of here. I’ve got enough on my hands as it is.” Out he barged, and closed the door as emphatically as the girl had done.
“Why don’t you all go and leave me alone?” came her voice in a muffled sort of way.
“You come out here,” commanded Dorn. “I want to talk to you.”
“I won’t,” she retorted. “I don’t want to talk to anybody. You can go talk to yourself.”
“I’ll smash your damned door down and drag you out!”
“That’s the way to talk to ’em, Bill,” said Jinks, and nudged him in the ribs with a bony elbow. “They like it an’ come a-runnin’.”
She didn’t come running, but after a brief pause, she did open her door and stood on the threshold. Queen of Sheba? Jinks would have come closer to it had he said Ice Queen.
“Well, Mr. Dorn?” she inquired loftily.
Dorn reached out, caught her by the arm, led her back to the fireplace and plopped her down on her bench.
“You make me sick!” stormed Bill Dorn.
“You—you great big brute! If you think for a minute—” Then all of a sudden she burst out laughing. She laughed as though she’d never stop. Dorn, amazed, stared at her as at a mad woman, and Jinks, his brows puckered, began plucking at his lower lip.
“We’re carrying on from where we started last night!” the girl cried half hysterically. “How did the rest of it go? You offered to break my damn’ little neck—and I cordially invited you to slink off in your own slime! Shall we go on with it?”
“Will you answer me?” said Dorn, very stern. “Are you Lorna Kent? If you are, why did Diana say that?”
“I am the witch’s daughter, and I dine off a brew made of toads and noisome herbs picked at midnight at the dark o’ the moon. I—”
“Oh, hell!” said Dorn.
“Echo!” she retorted.
“Will you tell me or won’t you?”
“I won’t!”
He went to the mantel, leaning where Bundy had leaned a little while ago, staring down at the dying coals on the hearth. Presently, without looking up, he said in the sort of voice a man might use communing with himself:
“I don’t know that I blame you. If you are Lorna Kent, well you’ve already said so, and once ought to be enough. And if you’re somebody else, well, it’s your affair. But maybe you’ll answer this: Are you sticking here or are you for moving on? If you want to go, and go fast, I’ll catch up a horse for you and see you on your way.”
“I am staying right here,” she said.
“Fine. That means you’re going to play the cards you’ve called for and drawn. Now listen to me. If you’ll kick in, I think I see the first move against Mike Bundy. Whether you’re Lorna Kent or not—”
“I think Mr. Bundy is a fairer, squarer man than you’ll ever be, Bill Dorn,” she said hotly. “And I won’t listen to you. Is that clear?”
“It sure is. I’m through here.”
“That’s lovely! And I’m so grateful to you for being through and going away that I’ll give you a witch’s warning: You just look out for that Diana creature, Mr. Blind Bull Bill Dorn! I think she carries a dagger in her stocking!”
“What are you driving at?” Dorn asked sharply.
“I saw the look she gave you! Oh, you great big fools, you men, always thinking every pretty girl is in love with you! Why that stagey little Spanish Señorita hates you like poison. If some day she sticks a knife in your back, don’t blame me!”
Dorn clapped on his hat and went out. A third time that night a door closed emphatically. From the porch he heard Cap’n Jinks say expostulatingly, “Now you looky here, Miss Lorny.” That was all he heard, not her exclamation which broke off into a sob as, letting the old fellow pat her on the back, she buried her hot face in his dusty shirt front.
Storm-Along Bill Dorn stormed along to the stable. He remembered Hank Smith and Mex Fontana but did not slow his step; if they were still hanging around and cared to speak their little piece, he’d like nothing better. He wore a gun again, and never had he felt more in the mood to use it.
But all was quiet out there about the corrals. He went out into the field vaguely bright with the newly risen moon, and roped one of the Palm Ranch horses. He led it back, changed his saddle, and struck out for the Blue Smokes. As he started he muttered: “Damn a girl anyhow. Here I’m stacking into my fourth thirty-mile ride for the day. A good hundred and twenty miles, and you can thank for anyhow half of it a come-hither-eyed dance hall girl from Nacional who says she’s a witch’s daughter and sometimes acts the part. Oh hell!”
CHAPTER IX
The Blue Smokes Mountains were in labor and were about to give birth to no mere mousy thing but to a lusty squalling brat of a town which, like any newborn human, would turn red in the face and make a tremendous uproar to celebrate the occasion. In all essentials it was destined to be twinlike with many a Western mining town before its day and not a few afterward, the sort of town which the West bore and which made their mother over into what she grew to be. Beat back and forth, up and down through Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, and you’d find, as the old-timers had a way of saying, “Lots o’ towns like County Line, but damn few more so.”
County Line was destined to be the youngling’s name, a name never officially given it, haphazardly flung at it and sticking as Bill Dorn’s nicknames stuck to him. But before County Line was really delivered and had emitted its first yell, several things happened.
Bill Dorn, leaving only Cap’n Jinks to safeguard that confounded girl—well, Jinks and his sawed-off shotgun were not to be sneezed at—had returned promptly to the camp on Silver Creek. Dog-tired, with his saddle for a pillow and his feet to a smoldering fire, he had slept like a log. With the rest of the swarming camp he was up early.
He looked up his old friends, and they were many, and some few of them were no longer friendly because of their losses to Bundy, playing Bundy’s game on Bill Dorn’s say-so. This morning Dorn had a stub of a pencil and a scrap of paper; to man after man he said, “Look here, Bill,”—or Jim—or Tom—“how much did you lose to Bundy? I want to know, and when I can I’m going to pay you back. Every damned cent.”
Some said, “Aw, shucks, Bill, forgit it; it’s all in a lifetime”; and some were over eager to give him the information; and in nearly all cases he set down figures on his scrap of paper. That chore done he went and sat on a mountainside in a clump of cedars where none would see him, and held his head in his hands.
“Somehow,” he muttered, “it’s got to be done. Somehow it’s got to be done. It was me they trusted, not Bundy. If it hadn’t been for me they wouldn’t have lost a tenth as much. Take that Antelope Valley crowd; they are cleaned down to their boot heels.”
He alone of the whole crowd, and there must have been five hundred men and boys and a sprinkling of women there on Silver Creek the second day, did not drive a stake. What was the use? Bundy and the fifty or sixty men acting for him had without a doubt nailed the treasure chest tight shut. What he did was ride once more carrying his penciled scrap of paper with him down to Liberty, the little desert town about equidistant with Nacional from the Blue Smokes, but well up on the American side of the border. He went to a bank there where at times he had deposited various sums; he went to the banker, Roger Rutherford, whom Dorn liked and in whose opinions he put considerable trust. “Mike Bundy has played me for a sucker,” said Dorn.
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br /> “Sure,” said Rutherford. “I tried to tell you that a year ago, but you wouldn’t listen. Mike Bundy is the biggest crook in the West, and he is also the shrewdest. The law can’t touch him anywhere. If he has nailed your hide to his barn door—well, your hide stays where it’s nailed.”
“I’m damned if it does,” said Dorn.
“I’d like to listen,” said the banker. He closed his roll-topped desk and reached for his hat. “Let’s go somewhere we can get a drink and get away from interruptions.”
In a private (poker) room at the old Liberty Parker House the whole story was told by Bill Dorn. His friend listened attentively but not in the least excited. “I’ve known all this for a long time,” was what the look in his eye said.
“I’ve been trying to figure,” said Dorn at the end. “I’m not entirely bankrupt, though I guess I would have been pretty pronto if MacArthur hadn’t jolted me wide awake with some cold-steel facts there was no dodging. My ranch is on the skids, lock, stock and barrel; Bundy gets it and there’s no stopping him. But there’ll be a few thousands salvage even there. What I want you to do for me, Roger, is take a power of attorney, do whatever you judge best under the circumstances, and rake me up all the money you can. Let me know in a week how much your bank will advance me on my prospects and assets.”
“Fair enough. Need any change right away?”
“About twenty-five thousand.”
“There ought to be that much in your account with us. If not, your note is always good enough for us, Bill.”
“Thanks,” said Dorn.
“There’s just one thing: Are you set on locking horns with Mike Bundy?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re riding for a fall, Bill. Six months from now, even a month from now, I don’t know about your note being worth a dollar to our board of directors. Mike Bundy is a big man; he’s a crook, yes, but he’s always inside the law, and I don’t know but that he’s a good thing for this part of the country. Better pull out with what you’ve got left and your lesson, Bill. Bundy’ll smash you sure as little apples make cider.”
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