The Smiling Desperado E-Book

Max Brand

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

An exciting saga of danger, adventure, and romance on the Western frontier. Bill Lancaster was a dangerous man that no one dared mess with. He was fast with a gun, deadly with his fists, and a bully who never let you forget who was tougher. Young Dan Cadigan however refused to be pushed. Mistaken for a quiet weakling, no one expected him to stand up to Bill Lancaster. Fighting him with his fists he made Lancaster realize that someone was tougher than he was. Desperate he used his gun on Cadigan while they were fighting. Now Cadigan wants to teach Lancaster a lesson and he intended to use what he had just discovered, that he did not know fear. Danger made a smile touch his lips. Danger made Cadigan smile – and Cadigan’s smile made other men tremble.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. DANNY STOPS THE SPEEDING MILL

II. AT KIRBY RANCH

III. DANNY AND LANCASTER CLASH

IV. "ADVISED TO DRIFT"

V. MEETING UNCLE JOE LOFTUS

VI. THE RIO GRANDE FOR CADIGAN

VII. A HARSH INSTRUCTOR

VIII. THE SEND-OFF

IX. CADIGAN'S TIMELY ARRIVAL

X. "SORT OF DUMB AND SIMPLE!"

XI. BOSWICK GOES AFTER CADIGAN

XII. "BARNEY"

XIII. WITHOUT GUN OR CLUB

XIV. AT THE HEAD OF THE MONSTER

XV. LOU MAKES A DISCOVERY

XVI. LANCASTER PLANS TROUBLE

XVII. BARNEY VISITS A HOTEL

XVIII. NEWS AT THE FARMHOUSE

XIX. BENEATH LOU'S WINDOW

XX. ANOTHER CRIME CHARGED TO CADIGAN

XXI. SYLVIA PLANS

XXII. SURROUNDED

XXIII. PURSUIT

XXIV. BARNEY, REAR GUARD

XXV. THE BANK HOLDUP

XXVI. FACE TO FACE WITH RICKIE

XXVII. CADIGAN LEARNS THE TRUTH

XXVIII. DANNY GETS A SURPRISE

XXIX. A BARGAIN IS STRUCK

XXX. CADIGAN SEEKS CAL HOTCHKISS

XXXI. CAL FINDS AN HONEST MAN

XXXII. LANCASTER SETTLES DOWN

XXXIII. A BAD MISS FOR LANCASTER

XXXIV. A GREAT STORY WRITTEN

XXXV. AT THE FOOT OF GORMAN PASS

I. DANNY STOPS THE SPEEDING MILL

NO one noticed Danny Cadigan until his tenth year. Up to that point he was simply a sleek, good-natured boy with sleepy black eyes and a sluggish body. But in his tenth year, on a brisk windy day in March, the long rope which was used to pull the fan out of the wind and bind it to the side of the wheel, snapped short at its head, dropped its long length upon the head of the school-teacher, and made her squeal with fear.

She clasped her hands together with alarm and ran back from beneath the mill to see what was happening. Of course, the fan snapped out into the gale at once, and the wheel turned into a flashing gray disk, so rapidly did it begin spinning.

That was not all. She had gone to turn the mill off because the tank which supplied the needs of the school–both for the thirsty children and for the horses which they drove or rode for many miles–had been filled to the brim and the drainage pipe which took the overflow from the top of the tanks had been spurting a white stream and turning the ground in front of the entrance to the school into a lake.

The teacher was frantic. That forming pool meant that the children would tramp into the building with muddy feet for days and days to come. It meant wet shoes, it meant colds, it meant sneezes, it meant swollen red noses and dull eyes and duller brains.

And there was already so much work to make up! What would the trustees have to say to her at the end of the spring term? And how could she explain to them that it was all on account of a pool of water in front of the school, caused by the breaking of the rope which–

No mere man could understand these long chains of causes and effect; it required a woman; it required a woman’s tact and–er–intuition!

So said Miss Sophie Preston in her bodeful heart as she watched the wheel stagger and moan with speed in the full face of the storm, and as she saw the plunger racing loosely up and down, forcing water out of the seams of the pump at every stroke. The stream rushed into the tank faster than the overflow pipe could accept it. And now a thousand little rivulets began to streak to the side of the tank.

Miss Preston ran hysterically back into the schoolhouse.

“Oh,” she cried, clasping her hands, “who can stop the mill–it’s running away! The rope is broken!”

The whole roomful of children poured outdoors. There was that in the words and in the manner of the teacher which suggested a picture of the windmill striding away across the landscape with gigantic steps. In a wide semi-circle, then, they grouped around the four iron legs of the mill and craned their necks to watch the racing wheel. There was nothing novel about it. Every one of them had seen racing mills before; but the hysteria of the teacher was catching. They began to gape and whisper to one another. Besides, nothing is so confusing, so unnerving, as a wind storm. Above the head of the mill they could see the clouds torn to shreds and hurried across the sky. And when one of the eighth-grade boys yelled: “Look at Danny Cadigan!” his voice was a mere whistle above the storm.

Then they saw Danny Cadigan climbing slowly up the long ladder, his fat little body swaying from side to side in the pressure of the gale. He made no haste. He climbed very leisurely, a step at a time, steadying himself on both feet before he essayed the next rung of the ladder. The teacher, seeing him already high in the air, screamed with fear and at that Danny let go with one hand, though the wind was cuffing him hard, and waved a reassuring hand.

“They ain’t no call to be scared,” said one of the older boys, “because Danny never makes no mistakes. He’s just playin’ some sort of a game.”

“He never plays!” cried the teacher. “Oh, what is in the child’s mind?”

For, at the noon hour and at the recesses, Danny usually sat in the shade of one of the trees near the schoolhouse, or else he leaned against the corner of the building and blinked his big, lazy black eyes at the others. Even the activity of sport did not greatly appeal to him. He preferred to drowse and dream and watch the others. He was not even bothered by the bullies of the school, for it was taken for granted that such an inactive one would not fight, and would not offer sport even if he was maltreated. He was merely a drone in a busy hive. At some time he would be stung by one of the workers. But up to the present he was too small to be noticed. He was a nonentity even to the nervous teacher, for he never was either a failure or a great success in his studies; he was never in mischief, but neither did he have a cheerful eye and smile. Take him by and large, he might be considered a neuter. But here he was clambering up the ladder. What could it mean?

That he had some definite purpose dawned in the minds of the watchers when he was seen to work on above the halfway mark and still higher and higher toward the platform above which the wheel was spinning and clanking.

“Go up and bring him down! Quick! Quick!” cried Sophie Preston. “He’ll fall–he’ll be killed!”

The biggest boy in the school ran forward as a volunteer and hurried up a dozen rungs of the ladder until the full force of the wind caught him and flung him hard to one side. Then, with a cry of fear, he looked up just in time to see one of the worn rungs break beneath the feet of Danny. Poor Danny hung at arm’s length and swayed far out in the wind like the flag on the Fourth of July. That was enough for the rescuing hero, for he did not wait to see Danny clutch the ladder again with his legs. He hastened down to firm ground, sick in the pit of his stomach, and from the solid earth he looked up and saw Danny disappear through the trap and clambering onto the storm-swept platform high above.

Here the wind veered and tossed the flying wheel around. Its darting vanes skimmed the very head of Danny, and the teacher, with a scream, covered her face.

“He’s all right! Oh, look!” cried one of the older girls to Miss Preston, and when she stared upward again, she saw Danny standing erect on the platform!

More than that, he was reaching toward the fan and tugging fiercely at it.

“Come down!” screamed twenty voices in a wild chorus, but the words were lost and blended in the whistle of the wind, and all that reached Danny was a mere roar. To answer it, he stood on the very edge of the platform and waved down to them.

Thereat Miss Preston fainted away. But she was hardly heeded. The pupils were too busy gazing at Danny as that pudgy form, standing still near the verge of the platform to gain a great purchase on the fan, tugged strongly at it. Finally, as the wind abated for an instant, he was able to jerk it in. The wheel swung around out of the wind, and in a trice Danny, with the broken fragment of rope, had lashed fan and wheel together.

By the time Miss Preston recovered, Danny was on the ground again.

After that, Danny was regarded with new eyes.

“Were you scared?” asked some one, a little later.

“Scared?” said Danny, and his dreamy eyes lighted a little. “Well, I dunno as–”

“He dunno what bein’ scared is,” said a cow-puncher who heard the report. “That kid’ll come to something–or nothing!”

Miss Preston tried to make much of the young hero, but she tried in vain. When she praised him, he looked at her bewildered, and he shook his head.

“It was sort of fun,” was all Danny would ever say about that adventure.

For two years, after that, he continued to live his usual life at the school. Then an eighth-grade boy took it upon himself to try the battle spirit of Danny Cadigan. It began with a practical joke, in the shape of tacks placed on Danny’s seat. But though he sat down on them and rose again suddenly, he made not a sound. He merely pulled the tacks out of the seat of his trousers and placed them in his pocket.

He said nothing; he asked no questions; and the tyrant grew bolder and more contemptuous.

The next day he said to Danny: “D’you want to know who put them tacks on your seat? I done it!”

“Oh!” murmured Danny, and smote his tormentor fairly upon the root of the nose.

There is something immensely disconcerting about a punch on the nose, smartly given. It floods the eyes with tears; it stings like a hornet; and if a trickle of red follows, the weak-hearted lose their nerve. The bully, jumping back, ran a forefinger under his nose and it came away very red. After that he was willing to call the battle off. But Danny Cadigan was only beginning.

He had never fought before. But he had stood by and watched many and many a grisly encounter with his dull black eyes. Those eyes were glittering and gleaming now. He came swiftly in with his left arm extended as he had seen the best boxers in the school always do when they wanted to make an opening. He bashed that left fist into the stomach of the bully and then cracked home his right hand squarely against the chin of the other.

The big boy went down with a thud, and before he could recover, while he was still groaning: “Enough!” Danny Cadigan flung the conquered upon his face and twisted one arm of the fallen into the small of his back. After that, the bully was helpless. The more he struggled, the more agonizing was the pressure that was brought upon his twisted shoulder socket. Suddenly he began to scream, wild, blood-chilling yells.

And the hand of Cadigan was seen to be dipping into a coat pocket and out again, apparently pressing something into the back of the fallen. Half a dozen boys dragged him away. And then it was found that he had been jabbing the tacks of the day before, deep into the body of the unfortunate victim.

The teacher could not believe it until she saw the blood oozing out on the coat of the unhappy youngster. Then she took Danny to one side and talked long and gravely to him.

“I dunno,” said Danny. “He stuck me with tacks when I wasn’t lookin’. I stuck him with tacks when he was lookin’. Is that wrong?”

That was the last fight of Danny Cadigan for ten years. For, during that space of time, he remained near his home town. And, no matter how mild his behavior, rumor went before him and warned ignorant strangers of the danger that lay concealed beneath that mild exterior.

Until his twenty-second year, the windmill and that one fight were the outstanding features in the life of Danny, except for the death of his father and his mother. As for the passing of his father, Danny did not seem to mind it greatly. He was seen beside the grave in his range-rider’s costume, just as he had ridden in from the nearby ranch where he was working. He was grown, now, into a youth a little above a middle height, with broad shoulders, and a sleek face, and eyes which looked simply stupid to some, and sad to others.

“They ain’t no heart in him,” said the rancher for whom he worked. “When I give him word that his pa had died, he just grunted and went on eatin’ his dinner. That’s the way with that Danny Cadigan!”

Two years later, his mother closed her eyes. But that was very different. Danny came and sat beside the dead body for twenty-four hours, until the doctor came in and tipped up his head and looked down into the dull, expressionless eyes.

“You better get some sleep,” said the doctor. “You can’t do any good here now, my boy!”

So Danny Cadigan left the room without a word, but not to sleep. And when the body was buried in the grave in the cemetery under the elms, he stood beside the hole with his usual lack-luster eyes. There he remained, too, long after the coffin was covered and the mound completed and the little crowd of mourners scattered away. Some said that he stayed there for a whole day before he went back to the range.

After that, the people of that district changed their minds about Cadigan. There was something to him, after all, they declared. There was a hidden fineness. There was something delicate behind his leaden reserve.

But just when they made up their minds that Danny Cadigan would be welcome among them, Cadigan seemed to discover that he no longer desired their company. Two days after his mother was buried, he asked for his pay, mounted his horse, and rode north.

II. AT KIRBY RANCH

NORTH and north and north rode Cadigan, until he came, on a day, into the view of a cow-puncher struggling on the back of a piebald mustang which was leaping off the earth, tying itself into knots in mid-air, and landing again with stiff legs and sickening jolts. At the third jolt, the cow-puncher dived into the corral dust, whereupon the mustang turned and tried to eat his foeman. Cadigan drew rein by the fence, and watched a second hero try and fail. Then, as the others stood back, cursing, none anxious to begin, Cadigan said to the man who appeared to be in control:

“You ain’t got a job floatin’ around loose, have you?”

At this the rancher turned sharply upon him and noted the sleek skin, the mild black eyes.

“I ain’t got a job for you, son,” he said harshly. “We ain’t started workin’ boys up here. This here is a man’s range.”

He turned away, but added as a cruel afterthought: “Unless you can ride that paint hoss!”

When he looked again, Cadigan had dismounted, thrown his reins, and climbed the fence.

In the first ten minutes Cadigan was thrown three times. Once he was hurled clear over the fence. Twice he escaped the wicked feet or teeth of the horse by rolling under the lower bar. The fourth time he tried, and he clung to the saddle like a string to a parcel. The piebald was ridden at last!

So they gave Cadigan a job. Still, they gave it reluctantly. As Tom Kirby, the rancher said: That was not a country intended for youths or those of tender hands or consciences. There was a sheep-cattle war in the offing, for one thing. And when Cadigan was asked if he wanted to ride against them, he replied simply that he had nothing against the sheepmen in that part of the land.

“He ain’t a fightin’ man,” said Kirby to his boys. “He talked like he was pretty peaceful. Still, we seen him show game in the saddle, and I guess that we can use him for a while. Just handle him easy, boys. He can do the chores while you cut out the big work.”

So Cadigan was used for chores on the Kirby ranch. He was given wood chopping, milking, hay pitching, fodder cutting–a brutal labor with a hay saw–and every other odd job around the ranch which required good humor and patience rather than brains or courage.

And all went well on the Kirby ranch so far as Cadigan was concerned. For it was a big country of huge mountains, and mighty pine forests. The cattle grew lofty in stature and thick of bone. And the horses which were ridden at the end of the ropes were twelve hundred pounders, capable of working in a plough team; and the rope itself was a sixty-foot burden. How different from the light, supple thirty-five-foot rope with which your Southwesterner works his cows! And the men on the Kirby ranch were as big as their country. That is to say, they were all proven many times over. Each knew the formidable quality of the other. The peace was that of a drawn battle.

As for Cadigan, they paid no attention to him. Or, if they did, it was only a word or a grunt. He did not mind it when they talked down to him. Therefore there was no friction. No one could have dreamed that trouble would come until Bill Lancaster came into camp and forced the issue.

He went to Kirby and asked for work. Kirby was very polite, because politeness was well known to be a necessity when one addressed Bill Lancaster.

“Certainly,” said Kirby. “I’ll be mighty glad to have you around. They’s a lot of wolves up around my way that been needin’ killin’ for a long time.”

This hint was received by Lancaster with a broad grin, and he rode out to the ranch at the side of Mr. Thomas Kirby, feeling that the world had at least some traces of good sense–in that it knew that Bill Lancaster must always be well received, and at supper that night, Danny Cadigan saw the famous man for the first time. Afterward he talked to Jud McKay.

Jud was the oldest and the most good-natured of the cow-punchers who worked upon the old Kirby place. The others referred to Dan as the “boy.” But old Jud McKay called him “son.” Perhaps he despised Danny more than the others did. But there was this point of advantage. Danny had not heard his stories before, and all his tales were ancient history to the rest of the working force. Indeed, in the whole section there was hardly a man who did not know the stories of Jud McKay as well as they knew the face of that worthy waddie. It had been five years, well-nigh, since he had spun a yarn to any audience without seeing at least one of them begin to yawn. But in Dan Cadigan he found a perfect listener. For hours on end Cadigan was willing to sit passively and drink in the words of the old cow hand, his dreaming, dull-black eyes fixed on the distance, while Jud McKay fought Indians and dug gold enough to have furnished forth another California.

When they left the supper table, Cadigan was full of wonder and full of doubts. For, during the meal, he had noticed that when Bill Lancaster spoke all the others became silent and even Tom Kirby himself lent an attentive ear. So he cornered Jud McKay at the corral where Jud had gone to look over a Roman-nosed filly which had recently been added to his string. It was dusk of a June day; the stars were coming out singly through the haze of the after-glow, and in the south and east the Chico Range was turning black and drawing huge and near. They leaned on the fence smoking their after-supper cigarettes, enjoying the coolness, for their faces still burned from the fiery heat of the day and ovenlike closeness of the dining room, filled with the odor of fried onions and scorched meat.

“Look here, son,” said McKay, “you know something about hosses. What do you say about this mare of mine?”

Cadigan regarded the old puncher with surprise. It was the first time since he came to the ranch that his opinion had been asked about anything.

“She’s a mite heavy behind, and light in front,” he said. “She ain’t apt to last long working a herd, but she might do for ridin’ range. She’ll never do for cuttin’ out. It’d break her down.”

“Right,” said McKay. “You got sense–about hosses, Danny.”

“This here Lancaster–” began Dan Cadigan.

“Oh, him?” said Jud McKay. “What about him?”

“He seems to be quite a man.”

Jud McKay shifted his cigarette dexterously from one corner of his mouth to the other, on the tip of his tongue.

“They’s enough in him to cut out two men, son,” said he, “with all the trimmin’s!”

Cadigan waited.

“What’s he done?” he said at last.

“Growed-up men,” said McKay, “don’t ask so doggone many questions. Gimme a chance to think.”

He went on, pacified by the apologetic silence of Cadigan: “Lancaster was a tenderfoot. He come out to Montana and put some money into cattle. He was trimmed pretty bad, and when he found out what had happened to his coin, it turned him sort of sour. He didn’t run amuck. He just started in to get the gents that had done him. They was five of ’em. He didn’t push things along. He just waited until he got the right chance so’s he could put the blame on them. Well, two years ago he killed the last of the five. One of ’em skinned out of the country. One of ’em is a cripple for life. Three of ’em is dead. That’s the way that Bill Lancaster worked ’em. And he got the taste for that sort of fun. He begun to figure that his time was pretty near wasted if he didn’t have a fight on his hands about every month or so. Some day he’ll be bumped off, but most likely it’ll be with a shot from behind. Because Bill, he don’t booze none, and he keeps in training. He fights himself into shape, you might say, all the time!”

To this thrilling account, Cadigan listened with the proper quiet.

“The trouble with Lancaster,” said McKay, “is that he likes any sort of fight, big or small. He’d corner a rat and make it bite his foot for the sake of setting that boot on it and hearin’ it squeal. He likes to see other gents suffer. That’s the way with Lancaster!”

He added: “But you just pipe down mighty small and you’ll get in no trouble. Just keep away from Lancaster and when he starts badgerin’ you, don’t talk back. But if he thinks you’re scared of him–he’ll never let up on you till–” He cleared his throat and changed the subject abruptly.

“A mean hoss with no sense, and too light in front–it’s like investin’ a lot of work in bum land that won’t give you no crop for all your trouble.”

But Cadigan did not answer. He presently drifted away from the corral and headed toward the bunk house. It consisted of one room with a big window at either end and a large stove in the center–a stove which was a vital necessity in the heart of the stern winter and which served as a target for cigarette butts. The bunks were built against the wall in a double tier, and they were littered with blankets of all colors, faded with dirt and age, gleaming and new, whole and tattered. In the interstices between the bunks, hanging from clusters of nails, were thick bundles of clothing, battered suit cases, wrinkled tarpaulins, and much footgear in various stages of disrepair.

Usually the cow-puncher does not accumulate much old stuff. What is worn out is thrown away. But the men at the Kirby ranch remained long enough to have about them the apparel of three or four years, at the least. Hence the wreckage which made the bunk house look very much like a junk shop.

Cadigan removed his boots and lay down after lighting the lantern at the head of his bunk. He pulled a dog-eared magazine from his blankets and folded it open. But this was only a mask behind which his attention wandered dreamily to other things.

Half of his thoughts were in the past, and half were in the present. Out of the past he was remembering two things only. One was when the frightened school children had poured out into the school yard to look up at the racing windmill. And the other was his single fist fight in the whole course of his boyhood. For, on each occasion, there had welled up into his blood and into his brain the same strange, tingling joy. He had felt it again, more mildly, when he conquered the fighting mustang on the Kirby ranch, but otherwise his life seemed a dull desert stretching to a dreary horizon of the commonplace. Sometimes it seemed to Cadigan that he was not constituted for happiness. Other men could be full of gayety. But the only landmarks in his life were the deaths of his father and of his mother. There was no great soul-possessing happiness excepting, only, those trials by fire–the climbing of the windmill, and the fight in the school yard. What had there been in them? It was danger, and danger only, which intoxicated him with pleasure. It was danger which acted upon the dull, sleepy soul of Cadigan like the sun on a closed flower.

Now Lancaster came, and once more the old tingle of delight began to warm his blood like wine.

His awakening eye glanced to the left and caught on two small holes drilled neatly through the boards of the wall beside his bunk. They had been covered with a nailed plank on the outside to shut out rain and wind. He had never noticed them before. But at some time in the past a revolver must have barked twice in the bunk house. There was absolutely no doubt of it in the mind of Cadigan.

In the meantime, the bunk house was filling gradually with tired cow-punchers who had lounged outside under the growing light of the stars but had finally been driven in to their bunks by the weary ache of their limbs.

“Hello!” cried the voice of Bill Lancaster. “Darned if I ain’t forgot my tarpaulin. Ain’t there a chore boy here that’ll trot out and get it for me?”

III. DANNY AND LANCASTER CLASH

CADIGAN, in his bunk, stretched his body slowly until he felt the pull of the muscles from the tip of his fingers down his arms and through his body and along his legs. Then he relaxed again. As a cat relaxes, when it has made itself aware of claws sharp beneath their sheaths of velvet, and of needle-pointed teeth, and of strong jaw muscles.

So it was with Cadigan. And he remembered, now, that his strength had never been fully tested except twice–once when he tugged at the fan of the windmill twelve years ago, and once when he struck the bully fairly in the center of the face a whole decade since. But in the interim, nothing had happened which had developed all of his power. He thought of this and yawned discreetly behind his hand.

“No chore boys here,” said old Jud McKay. “You got to run your own errands, Lancaster.”

“The devil!” growled out the newcomer. “What sort of an outfit is this here?”

Some one murmured words which Cadigan could not quite hear.

“Oh,” said Lancaster. “Is that it? Well, that’ll do for me.”

Like a shadow sweeping across a pond when the wind blows, so from the corner of his eye Cadigan was aware of the rising of big Bill Lancaster. What a giant of a man he was! And yet, how smoothly, how efficiently built! Certainly he was no muscle-bound blunderer!

“Hey!” called Lancaster. “Chore boy!”

Cadigan yawned again. Once more like a cat, when it feels a caressing hand run down its back. The big form of the new hand strode across the floor and sent the tremor of his footfall through the entire bunk house. Now his shadow fell thick and black across the magazine of Cadigan.

“What’s your name?” asked Lancaster.

Cadigan lowered his magazine and turned his head. He surveyed the other from head to foot, slowly, luxuriously, taking note of all his power. Here was danger indeed, vast danger with a cruel horde of possibilities. And once again the thrill of expectant happiness shot through him.

“My name’s Dan Cadigan,” said he.

“Well, Danny,” said Lancaster, “ain’t you the roustabout on this here ranch?”

Cadigan turned his head away and looked at the bottom of the bunk above him, as though in thought. But, in reality, he was merely tasting the intense relish of this scene. It was better than feeling that tug and jerking of the invisible hands of the wind; it was better than leaning from the platform of the windmill and waving at the frightened crowd who stood craning at him, a dizzy distance below. For the first time in his life, Cadigan felt an infinite satisfaction coming to him. And this was not all. More was to come!

“I dunno that I ever been called the roustabout,” he said gently.

“Look here, kid,” said Lancaster. “I don’t aim to get riled none. I’m a peaceful man, I am. I’m darned if I like to get my dander up. But I say you’re the roustabout, and what I say goes!”

“Yes,” said Cadigan softly.

“Ain’t you the one that milks the cows and chops the firewood?”

“Yes,” said Cadigan.

“And, if you do them things are you too good to run an errand for me out to the stable?”

“I didn’t say that I wouldn’t run an errand,” said Cadigan.

There was an appeased grunt from Lancaster. “Well,” said he, “hop up, then, and lemme see some action. That tarp is over in the corner right under my saddle. You can tell my saddle by the silver on it. I want that roll brung in here and put over on my bunk.”

He spoke the last words over his shoulder as he turned away, but when he had taken a few steps, he saw that all was not well. He could tell it by the sudden change which had come in the atmosphere of the room. Every man had paused in the very midst of the act which employed him. One had a boot half off; another held the match flaming in his hand without raising it to the tip of the cigarette; another paused with his vest thrown back over his elbows, ready to slip it off. But each stopped short and began to stare with widened eyes. Lancaster turned sharply about and saw that Cadigan had not moved.

He could hardly believe it. Then the wild red blood swelled his face. He was back beside the bunk with a leap.

“Cadigan!” he thundered.

“Yes?” said the gentle voice of Cadigan.

“Did you hear what I told you?”

“Yes,” said Cadigan.

“Why ain’t you movin’?”

The glance of Cadigan dwelt upon the huge, balled fists of the gun fighter. He could hardly speak, so great was that inward satisfaction.

“I was thinkin’ it over,” said Cadigan.

And then some one giggled like a girl, hysterically. That sound precipitated the cloudy wrath of Lancaster. No matter what happened, he would have to vent that wrath in physical action before he was through with this scene.

“Get up!” he snarled out.

Cadigan looked up and saw that the eyes of Lancaster were like the eyes of a beast.

“Get up!” gasped out the big man, and leaning a little, he gripped Cadigan by the shoulder.

Into the thick flesh of Cadigan’s shoulder the fingers dug, digging deep until what seemed flabby fat began to stir and twist and grow hard. The whole mass of shoulder muscle grew hard, and the fingers of Lancaster slipped from the smooth surface. At that, seeing that he had something besides a fat and helpless antagonist, his wrath redoubled. He renewed his grip and tore Cadigan from the bunk.

“You need manners!” shouted Lancaster. “And me, I’m the boss teacher of politeness. I’m gunna give you a lesson, kid, that you ain’t gunna forget if you live to be an old man. I’m gunna–”

“Hey, Lancaster!” called the shaken voice of old Jud McKay. “Don’t make no mistake. That kid ain’t no fighter.”

Lancaster turned on McKay in a ravening fury. “To the devil with your heart!” he raged. “I ain’t gunna stop with the kid, maybe. Maybe I’m gunna go right on and be school-teacher to the whole lot of you. Understand?”

Jud McKay shrank back into the shadow of his own bunk. To his own heart he vowed that if he had been a younger man–but he was not young. He was old, he was stiff, he was weak. Why did not some other among these men stand up to stop the horror which was about to take place? But not a man moved. There were black faces among them. But the danger was too great. This was Bill Lancaster, and at the side of the big man were Bill Lancaster’s two guns, each with a half dozen stories sealed in its magazine.

Lancaster wheeled back upon his victim. Cadigan standing was a far different spectacle from Cadigan lying down, or Cadigan sitting. He was exactly ten inches above five feet in his height, and he weighed without his clothes exactly a hundred and ninety pounds, which never varied hot weather or cold, in idleness or in fierce and long-continued labor. He weighed a hundred and ninety, but he looked a full twenty pounds lighter, for that bulk was not noticed in the roundness of his chest and his depth from front to back. But what Lancaster saw at once was that here was a solid fellow–as solid as lead! No one else on the Kirby place had ever suspected it. But Lancaster was not like the others. When one has hunted fights in wholesale quantities, one begins to be able to recognize the fighters. Here, perhaps, was no fighting heart. But certainly here was one who would have stripped well in the prize ring. And Lancaster, remembering how the shoulder flesh had stiffened into thick, gristly muscle, decided suddenly that he would risk no personal encounter. The guns would decide this little matter.

He fell back half a pace.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Lancaster. “You apologize and then trot out and get that tarp and I’ll let you off. Understand?”

Cadigan blinked.

“D’you hear me?” yelled Lancaster.

Then he heard a startled gasp from all the roomful of spectators. For Cadigan was smiling! And indeed, there was in the body and in the soul of Cadigan such a rioting joy that he could no longer suppress it. It burst forth at his eyes in light. It made the corners of his mouth twitch back, and while he smiled straight into the soul of the larger man, he felt as though he were already grappling the other in spirit.

“By the heavens!” breathed Lancaster, and gliding back another half step, he reached for his gun, which hung behind his right hip.

The fingers gripped the butt, but did not draw the Colt. For the hand of Cadigan darted out and closed over that of Lancaster. It seemed to the killer that a bracelet of fire was clamped upon his wrist, for the wrench of Cadigan’s twisting hand fairly ground the flesh against the bones of Lancaster’s arm. And the fingers of that good right hand grew numb and helpless.

Lancaster, with a startled cry, jerked himself back, but he could not tear himself away. He was held as though he were chained to a post. And when he reached for his second gun with his left hand, the right fist of Cadigan chopped into his face.

It was like the tap of a sledge hammer, held with a short grip on the handle. It half stunned Lancaster, but it made him desperate, also, and his desperation gave him a power which even the mighty grip of Cadigan could not withstand. The killer tore himself away, reeling back half the length of the big bunk house, and gripping at his guns.

Cadigan followed close.

He knew his strength, now, and to him it was like the discovery of a new continent. Even this giant of a man, even this famous Lancaster was nothing in his hands. There were only the guns to fear.

“Lancaster!” yelled half a dozen voices in a single burst of horror. “Look out what you do! He ain’t got a gun!”

“I’ll salt him away!” screamed Lancaster, and both the long weapons came out of their holsters.

At the same time, Cadigan leaped from the floor. His stockinged feet gave him security. He dived as though into water, and his shoulder, striking just above the knees of Lancaster, bowled the big man down like a tenpin. The two guns roared blindly at the same instant. One clipped a new hole through the farther end of the building. And one ripped through the thigh of young Stew Tanner.

Then they crashed to the floor.

Lancaster, as he toppled, reached out and caught the edge of a bunk. That grip could not save him, but the impetus swerved him to one side. He sat half erect, braced against the side of the bunk, and since he did not have time to fire, he chopped the long heavy barrel of his Colt against the head of Cadigan.

And Cadigan went to sleep.

Afterward, Lancaster disentangled himself from the limp arms and hands and rose to his feet. He leaned above the prostrate form with a devil in his face, but there was something electric in the air which made Lancaster look aside, and what he saw in the faces about him told him that it would not be well to touch the helpless body of his late antagonist.

So he stood up again, rubbing his right wrist. It had turned blue and purple and was swelling fast. Lancaster was filled with a shuddering horror. What manner of man was it who possessed a bone-breaking power like this in his fingers?

He could see more distinctly, now, the nature of the danger from which he had escaped. And, last of all, he remembered the smile of Cadigan. It was not a pleasant thought. Men sometimes grin with pure fury as they are about to fall into a conflict, but no one smiles out of the perfect happiness of the heart. There was something beyond the human about it. There was something devilish and cruel.