To Endicott"s surprise the girl"s eyes dropped before his gaze and rested for a long time upon the grazing horses--then abruptly she buried her face in her arms. The man had half expected a return to the light half-mocking raillery that had been her staunchest weapon, but there was nothing even remotely suggestive of raillery in the figure that huddled at his feet. Suddenly, his face became very grave: "Alice," he cried, bending over her, "is it because my hands are red?
Because I have taken a human life, and am flying from the hand of the law like a common murderer?"
"No, no, no! Not that? I----"
Swiftly he gathered her into his arms, but she freed herself and shook her head in protest. "Don"t please," she pleaded softly. "Oh, I--I can"t choose."
"Choose!" cried Endicott. "Then there is--someone else? You have found--" he stopped abruptly and drew a long breath. "I see," he said, gently, "I think I understand."
The unexpected gentleness of the voice caused the girl to raise her head. Endicott stood as he had stood a moment before, but his gaze was upon the far mountains. The girl"s eyes were wet with tears: "Yes, I--he loves me--and he asked me to marry him. He said I would marry either you or him, and he would wait for me to decide--until I was sure." Her voice steadied, and Endicott noticed that it held a trace of defensive. "He"s a dear, and--I know--way down in his heart he"s good--he"s----"
Endicott smiled: "Yes, little girl, he is good. He"s a man--every inch of him. And he"s a man among men. He"s honest and open hearted and human. There is not a mean hair in his head. And he stands a great deal nearer the top of his profession than I do to the top of mine. I have been a fool, Alice. I can see now what a complacent fool and a cad I must have been--when I could look at these men and see nothing but uncouthness. But, thank G.o.d, men can change----"
Impulsively the girl reached for his hand: "No," she murmured, remembering the words of the Texan, "no, the man was there all the time. The real man that is _you_ was concealed by the unreal man that is superficiality."
"Thank you, Alice," he said gravely. "And for your sake--and I say it an all sincerity--let the best man win!"
The girl smiled up into his face: "And in all sincerity I will say that in all your life you have never seemed so--so marryable as you do right now."
While Endicott cut a supply of fire-wood and tinkered about the spring, the girl made a complete circuit of the little plateau, and as the shadows began to lengthen they once more climbed to their lookout station. For an hour the vast corrugated plane before them showed no sign of life. Suddenly the girl"s fingers clutched Endicott"s arm and she pointed to a lone horseman who rode from the north.
"I wonder if he"s the same one we saw before--the one who rode away so fast?"
"Not unless he has changed horses," answered Endicott. "The other rode a grey."
The man swung from his horse and seemed to be minutely studying the ground. Then he mounted and headed down the coulee at a trot.
"Look! There is Tex!" cried Endicott, and he pointed farther down the same coulee. A sharp bend prevented either rider from noticing the approach of the other.
"Oh, I wonder who it is, and what will happen when they see each other?" cried the girl. "Look! There is Bat. Near the top of that ridge. He"s cutting across so he"ll be right above them when they meet." She was leaning forward watching: breathlessly the movements of the three hors.e.m.e.n. "It is unreal. Just like some great spectacular play. You see the actors moving through their parts and you wonder what is going to happen next and how it is all going to work out."
"There! They see each other!" Endicott exclaimed. Each horseman pulled up, hesitated a moment, and rode on. Distance veiled from the eager onlookers the significant detail of the shifted gun arms. But no such preclusion obstructed Bat"s vision as he lay flattened upon the rim of the coulee with the barrel of his six-gun resting upon the edge of a rock, and its sights lined low upon the stranger"s armpit.
"They"ve dismounted," observed Alice, "I believe Tex is going to unsaddle."
"Tightening his cinch," ventured Endicott, and was interrupted by a cry from the lips of the girl.
"Look! The other! He"s going to shoot---- Why, they"re fighting!"
Fighting they certainly were, and Endicott stared in surprise as he saw the Texan knocked down and then spring to his feet and attack his a.s.sailant with a vigour that rendered impossible any further attempt to follow the progress of the combat.
"Why doesn"t Bat shoot, or go down there and help him?" cried the girl, as with clenched fists she strained her eyes in a vain effort to see who was proving the victor.
"This does not seem to be a shooting affair," Endicott answered, "and it is my own private opinion that Tex is abundantly able to take care of himself. Ah--he got him that time! He"s down for the count! Good work, Tex, old man! A good clean knockout!"
The two watched as the men mounted and rode their several ways--the stranger swinging northward toward the mountains, and the Texan following along the south face of the b.u.t.te.
"Some nice little meetings they have out here," grinned Endicott. "I wonder if the vanquished one was a horse-thief or just an ordinary friend."
Alice returned the smile: "You used to rather go in for boxing in college, didn"t you?"
"Oh, yes. I can hold my own when it comes to fists----
"And--you can shoot."
The man shook his head: "Do you know that was the first time I ever fired a pistol in my life. I don"t like to think about it. And yet--I am always thinking about it! I have killed a man--have taken a human life. I did it without malice--without forethought. All I knew was that you were in danger, then I saw him fling you from him--the pistol was in my hand, and I fired."
"You need have no regrets," answered the girl, quickly. "It was his life or both of ours--worse than that--a thousand times worse."
Endicott was silent as the two turned toward the plateau. "Why, there"s Bat"s horse, trotting over to join the others, and unsaddled, too," cried Alice. "He has beaten Tex to camp. Bat is a dear, and he just adores the ground Tex walks on, or "rides on" would be more appropriate, for I don"t think he ever walked more than a hundred feet in his life."
Sure enough, when they reached camp there sat the half-breed placidly mending a blanket, with the bored air of one upon whom time hangs heavily. He looked up as Endicott greeted him.
"Mebbe-so dat better you don" say nuttin" "bout A"m gon" "way from here," he grinned. "Tex she com" "long pret" queek, now. Mebbe-so he t"ink dat better A"m stay roun" de camp. But _Voila_! How A"m know he ain" gon for git hurt?"
"But he did--" Alice paused abruptly with the sentences unfinished, for the sound of galloping hoofs reached her ears and she looked up to see the Texan swing from his horse, strip off the saddle and bridle and turn the animal loose.
"Oh," she cried, as the man joined them after spreading his saddle blanket to dry. "Your eyes are swollen almost shut and your lip is bleeding!"
"Yes," answered the cowboy with a contortion of the stiff, swollen lip that pa.s.sed for a smile. "I rounded the bend in a coulee down yonder an" run plumb against a hard projection."
"They certainly are hard--I have run against those projections myself,"
grinned Endicott. "You see, we had what you might call ringside seats, and I noticed that it didn"t take you very long to come back with some mighty stiff projecting yourself."
"Yes. Him pastin" me between the eyes that way, I took as an onfriendly act, an" one I resented."
"That wallop you landed on his chin was a beautiful piece of work."
"Yes, quite comely." The cowboy wriggled his fingers painfully. "But these long-horns that"s raised on salt-horse an" rawhide, maintains a jaw on "em that makes iron an" granite seem right mushy. I didn"t figure I"d recount the disturbance, aimin" to pa.s.s it off casual regardin" the disfigurin" of my profile. But if you-all witnessed the debate, I might as well go ahead an" oncork the details. In the first place, this warrior is a deputy that"s out after Win."
The Texan glanced sharply at Bat who became suddenly seized with a fit of coughing, but the face of the half-breed was impa.s.sive--even sombre as he worked at the blanket. "It"s all owin" to politics," continued the cowpuncher, rolling and lighting a cigarette. "Politics, an" the fact that the cow country is in its dotage. Choteau County is growin"
effeminate, not to say right down effete when a lynchin", that by rights it would be stretching its importance even to refer to it in conversation, is raised to the dignity of a political issue. As everyone knows, a hangin" is always a popular play, riddin" the community of an ondesirable, an" at the same time bein" a warnin" to others to polish up their rect.i.tude. But it seems, from what I was able to glean, that this particular hangin" didn"t win universal acclaim, owin" to the ma.s.sacre of Purdy not bein" deplored none."
Once more the half-breed emitted a strangling cough, and Tex eyed him narrowly. "Somethin" seems to ail your throat."
"_Oui_, A"m swal" de piece tabac"."
"Well just hang onto it "til it gets a little darker an" we"ll have supper," said the Texan, dryly, and resumed.
"So there was some talk disparagin" to the lynchin", an" the party that"s in, holdin" its tenure by the skin of its teeth, an" election comin" on, sided in with public opinion an" frowned on the lynchin", not as a hangin", you onderstand, but because the hangin" didn"t redound none to their particular credit--it not being legal an"
regular. All this is brewed while the dance is goin" on, an" by breakfast time next mornin", there bein" a full quorum of Republican war chiefs on hand, they pulls a pow-wow an" instructs their deputies to round up the lynchers. This is done, barrin" a few that"s flitted, the boys bein" caught unawares. Well, things begun lookin" serious to "em, an" as a last resort they decided to fall back on the truth. So they admits that there ain"t no lynchin". They tells how, after they"d got out on the bench a piece they got to thinkin" that the demise of Purdy ain"t a serious matter, nohow, so they turned him loose. "Where is he, then?" says a county commissioner. "Search us," replies the culprits. "We just turned him loose an" told him to _vamoose_. We didn"t stick around an" herd him!"" Again Bat coughed, and the Texan glared at him.
"Maybe a drink of water would help them lacerated pipes of yourn," he suggested, "an" besides it"s dark enough so you can start supper a-goin"."
"But," said Endicott, "won"t that get the boys all into serious trouble for aiding and abetting a prisoner to escape? Accessories after the fact, is what the law calls them."
"Oh Lord," groaned the Texan inwardly. "If I can steer through all this without ridin" into my own loop, I"ll be some liar. This on top of what I told "em in Wolf River, an" since, an" about Purdy"s funeral--I dastn"t bog down, now!"
"No," he answered, as he lighted another cigarette. "There comes in your politics again. You see, there was twenty-some-odd of us--an"
none friendless. Take twenty-odd votes an" multiply "em by the number of friends each has got--an" I reckon ten head of friends apiece wouldn"t overshoot the figure--an" you"ve got between two hundred an"