Timbal Gulch Trail E-Book

Max Brand

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Les Burchard owned the local gambling palace, half the town, and most of the surrounding territory, and Walt Devon’s thousand-acre ranch would make him king of the land. The trouble was, Devon didn’t want to sell. In a ruthless bid to claim the spread, Burchard tried everything from poker to murder. But Walt Devon was a betting man by nature, even when the stakes were his life. The way Devon figured, the odds were stacked against him. So he could either die alone... or takes his enemy to the grave with him. Max Brand at his best – pure Western adventure! One rancher defends his land against those who want it by any means possible.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. The Death Signal

II. The Zero Hour

III. A Confession

IV. A Gambler Shows His Hand

V. A Tip From The Sheriff

VI. In The Lion's Den

VII. Devon Springs A Surprise

VIII. Conflicting Viewpoints

IX. A Thunderbolt From Jim

X. Telltale Footprints

XI. The Gathering Of The Mob

XII. Lucky Jack's Sister

XIII. Slugger Lewis

XIV. A Bullet Between The Eyes

XV. One Way To Prevent Hanging

XVI. A Mysterious Disappearance

XVII. Devon Seeks Excitement

XVIII. The High Sign

XIX. A Cat-And-Mouse Game

XX. An Unexpected Meeting

XXI. A Bearer Of Ill Tidings

XXII. A Brutal Crime

XXIII. The Cabin In The Clearing

XXIV. The Stolen Horses

XXV. A Trap For Lucky Jack

XXVI. Jack Contemplates Hanging

XXVII. The Get-Away

XXVIII. Jim Gathers Evidence

XXIX. Just A Friendly Stroll

XXX. Dead Men Tell No Tales

XXXI. The Disappearing Herd

XXXII. The Mysterious Rider

XXXIII. Prue Is Cross-Examined

XXXIV. The Yellow Peril

XXXV. A Touch Of Chivalry

XXXVI. A Rendezvous

XXXVII. A Dangerous Young Man

XXXVIII. Judas Iscariot

XXXIX. Marked Cards

XL. Devon Gets A Chance

XLI. The Unholy Trio

XLII. Uninvited Guests

XLIII. The Eyes Of Prue Maynard

XLIV. At The Trail's End

I. The Death Signal

ALL the dark length of the rear veranda of the Palace was spotted with the glow of pipes or the pulsing red points of cigarettes.

Walter Devon looked with pleasure upon this trembling pattern of lights, for he knew that only dwellers in the wilderness enjoy a smoke in the dark–hunters and trappers, say, whose only rest comes after nightfall, or cow-punchers who toast their noses on winter nights.

There was no hunting in West London, he knew, except for gold, and there was no trapping except of greenhorns and tenderfeet and fools in general, whose pelts were lifted painlessly every day; but whatever their occupation at the moment, these were men of the desert, of the mountains.

There was another breed inside, already swarming back to the gaming tables, or lining the bar; sometimes the veranda floor shivered a little with their stamping, and the air trembled with their shouts; but up and down the veranda there was never an alteration in the tone of the deep, quiet voices, speaking guardedly as though of secrets.

Now and again one of the smokers finished and went inside, and as the door opened, the droning voice of a croupier floated out.

Walter Devon listened, and sighing with content, he drew in a longer breath flavored with the fragrance of many tobaccos and the pure sweetness of the pines. He was in no hurry to go back to work, with his hands resting on the green felt; he had not even picked his game for the night!

So he dwelt with aimless pleasure upon the glow of pipes and the glimpses they gave him of mustaches, and of young straight noses, and of noses thin and crooked with age; or again he considered what the cigarettes showed him when, for an instant, they made a pair of eyes look out from the night.

These lights were capable of movements, the pipes stirring slowly, the cigarettes jerking rapidly up and down as the smokers gesticulated. By sheer chance, since he had turned his attention to the subject, he saw–or thought he saw–a cigarette at the far end of the veranda wigwag, in dots and dashes clearly made, a question mark!

Walter Devon smiled at such a coincidence of gestures and unconscious ideas, and he continued to look dreamily at the distant smoker when, quickly and neatly, he saw that gleaming little point of light spell out: “Four!„

Once could be accident; the second time could not. Devon knew that the smoker was signaling the length of the veranda to some other man. And yet it seemed very strange that signals should be necessary when ten steps would take the signaler to the other end of the porch!

Devon left his chair and went to the side of the veranda. Over the railing he glanced down the steep sides of the gulch, covered by the ragged shadows of the pines, and in the bottom the stars found the water in an open pool showing a tarnished face of silver. Opposite the Palace, Timbal Mountain stepped grandly up the sky.

“Kind of like ridin’ on the observation platform, eh?” said one who lounged near by, against the railing.

It was, Devon agreed, turning a little toward the speaker. In this manner he faced away from the signaler whom he first had spotted, and immediately, at the farther end of the porch, he saw the duller glow of a pipe spell in the air the same question mark which he had noticed before!

The heart of Devon stirred in him. There were times when he told himself that he roamed the world seeking his fortune, whether it should be found in wars, or cards, or a lucky marriage; but he knew in his heart that all he wanted was the excitement of adventure.

In the thirty-odd years of his life while he had grown lean and hard with many labors, no gold had stuck to his fingers except a few thousand dollars to make him feel comfortable in a poker game of any size; but though he had won no money, he had found again and again the electric spark which leaped now in his brain as he observed this little mystery on the veranda of the Palace.

It would not be altogether safe, perhaps, to attempt to observe both of these signalers, though unless he watched the two of them he was not apt to make much from their strange and silent conversation. It was not safe, because the two men themselves dared not leave their chairs and speak together! They must be under observation of the closest kind, and they spoke by this code only in the faith that the observers would not understand what they said.

What were they saying, who were they, and who was keeping them under watch? These were small questions, perhaps, and had little to do with Walter Devon, but at least the solution would fill him with pleasure.

In the meantime, he had to arrange some method of keeping his eye upon the first signaler as well as the second, but this was done by taking a little pocket mirror into the palm of his hand. The signals of Number One streaked in dim red flashes across the small surface; Number Two he was facing while he talked to the man at the railing.

“Like an observation platform,” he agreed, “except that the mountains don’t close up behind us.”

“They ain’t likely to close up,” said the stranger. “They’re more likely to spread apart, what with the gougin’ and washin’ and blastin’ they’re doin’ on the side of old Timbal.”

Across the face of the mirror streaked the signal: “One way only!„

Before him there was no answering movement of the lighted pipe, as Devon answered his new companion: “It was not like this when I was last here.”

“You know the lay of the land in the old days?”

“Yes.”

“So do I. Twenty year back I forked a mule and rode down Timbal’s face. He didn’t wear a name, then. I come to the river. It didn’t wear no name, neither.”

“Speaking of names, how did the town pick up this one?”

“Why, that’s a yarn,” said the other in his deep, soft voice, so guarded that it barely reached the ear of Devon. “Old Les Burchard come along here–but that was ten years ago!”

“It’s fifteen since I was here before.”

“Well, Burchard come along with eight mules haulin’ at his wagon. He was aiming at Farralone, and he’d took this here valley for a short cut. Les had a barrel of white-faced poison in his wagon; when he got to Farralone he aimed to mix it up with tan bark and prune juice and call it whisky, but he thought that he’d better sample it on the way to see it wasn’t gettin’ bad.

“He took a taste, but he was kind of doubtful. He tasted agin, and still he wasn’t plumb clear about it. He didn’t finish tastin’ until his wagon come along to this place, and by that time he’d tasted himself nearly blind and run the right fore wheel of his wagon off of the bluff. It pretty near turned the outfit over and smashed the wheel to bits on a rock. Les sat down and looked things over. He could pack part of his track along on the mules, of course, but he didn’t have no proper packsaddles, and so Les Burchard says to himself that if he can’t get to a town, a town’ll have to get to him!”

The narrator paused, chuckling softly, and now a match flared as Number Two lighted his pipe. Devon clearly saw a young, handsome face, and a good, square-tipped jaw such as a fighter is apt to wear. It pleased him, that face, and he registered it clearly, feature by feature, in his memory.

For there are ways and ways of looking at a human face, and the poorest way of all is to depend upon a mere ensemble effect; the best is to dwell on details which cannot be altered by fictitious scars that pucker the skin, or changes of expression, or a growth of beard. The silhouette of the nose will alter very little. The angle of the nose bridge and the forehead is another thing, and the height and spread of the cheek bones, and the ear, above all, if the memory be very photographic indeed!

It was so with Devon, and he told himself that he would know this man to the very end of time!

His companion was continuing the story softly:

“Right there, Les Burchard he spread out his stuff, and he built himself a log shack, and he stowed things away, and he waited for a town to come and catch him!

“Back yonder behind Timbal was a man run some cows on the hills. By name of Devon, he was. Les went over and sold him a couple of his mules, and then he went back and waited a while more. He had a gun; and the valley had game; and he lived prime for a couple of months on venison and that white-faced poison of his.

“When he was feelin’ pretty groggy one mornin’, he got up and found the valley soaked and blind with a fog. Burchard had been a sailor, and that fog reminded him of London harbor up the Thames. So he stuck out a sign that afternoon, and on the sign was ‘London.’ He’d found a name for his new town, you understand?

“But after a while it seemed to Burchard that London wasn’t quite enough, because folks might get it mixed up with that other old town that most people have heard about now and then. So the next day he wrote ‘West’ in front of London, and that’s how this joint come to be known as West London.”

Number Two’s pipe suddenly moved in wigwag:

“What way?„

And the rapid cigarette point, blown upon until it glowed orange-red, made answer in the mirror:

“Death!„

The narrator went on:

“Les Burchard had not been in the valley long before that greaser that Devon kicked off of his place picked up the chunk of ore in the valley and guessed what he’d got. He hit town a week later, and th’ next mornin’ Les woke up and heard single-jacks chattering away at the rocks; and ten days later there was five thousand men laborin’ in the gulch. Les, he ladled out eggshells of his white death at a dollar a taste. He sold the timber of his wagon for two thousand dollars in gold. His mules, they brung in a coupla hundred apiece, and the leather of the harness was pretty near worth its weight in gold. Les, he made enough money out of that lay to pretty near retire on, but of course he didn’t. One day, when the valley was all filled with gents, Les, he was full of something better than sunshine, the last of his barrel, and he mooched off down the gulch, and says to himself that he’ll try his luck at diggin’ gold.”

Number Two, who had made a pause as though the last word startled him, as well it might, now signaled: “When?„

“To-night,” answered the cigarette smoker.

“Where?„

“Purley’s at eleven.„

“Old Les Burchard,” said the narrator, “was so full of redeye that he didn’t know where he was. But he had along a pick and shovel that was the last of his wagonload of stuff. When he got down into the valley he seen where a flat face of rock had been blasted out and hollowed away pretty deep, where some gents had sunk a shaft, or started to, but the vein had pinched out on ’em. Old Les, he says: ‘Here’s a hole part way dug already. It’s sure saved me a lot of work.’

“He stepped in there and he started pickin’ away, and some of the boys in the other holes around, they come and laughed to see him bending the point of his pick ag’in’ a solid wall of rock where there wasn’t any sign of color. They laughed, and waited for him to work himself sober and see what a fool he’d been. But pretty soon he hauls off and says: ‘One last lick for luck!’ and he soaks in the short end of his pick and breaks out a chunk, and the inside of that chunk was fair burnished and shining with pure wire gold! It sure dazzled the eyes of the boys, and it made Les Burchard so rich that he didn’t know what to do with his coin.

“However, storekeepin’ and such always was his line, and so, in spite of his money, he come up here where his wagon had broke down, and he built this here Palace, and I gotta say that he found a good set of dealers to put behind his tables, but the best of all is the cook that he found. That guy can certainly talk with a fryin’ pan!”

Walter Devon heard and murmured interest, but his heart was otherwise, for “Purley’s” was the name of the boarding house where he lived!

II. The Zero Hour

THERE were no more signals; presently the whole body of people on the veranda began to move back into the gaming house, and they went in such confusion that he, drifting with the rest, lost sight of signaler Number One. Number Two he spotted bucking faro with a rich stock of chips, and Devon put some coins on roulette at the nearest table.

Number Two was a half-breed, he decided, for there was the smoke in the eyes and the highness of cheek bones; he played like an Indian, also, with perfect indifference, no matter how much he lost, no matter how much he won. Faro and roulette were to Devon the drunkard’s games. They required nothing but luck, and nobody but a fool really could expect to beat them.

When he felt that he had observed the stranger long enough, Devon left shortly after ten and went to Mrs. Purley’s house. It was the largest boarding house in West London. Mr. Purley had established it as a saloon and gambling place, but the roulette wheels failed to make money fast enough, so he made a little more improvement in them so that he could collect faster. Unfortunately, a curious cow-puncher took one of the machines apart one day, and afterward he shot Mr. Purley twice through the head.

The big saloon stood vacant; Mr. Purley’s debts slightly exceeded his credits; and the saloon was about to be taken over by the first bidder, when Mrs. Purley arrived from the East.

She kicked the auction and the auctioneer into the street, closed the house again, scrubbed it from top to bottom, split the big rooms into little ones with canvas partitions, hung up hammocks for beds, and straightway opened to an enormous business. She herself stood behind the bar, and twice she was known to have felled turbulent bullies with a stout beer bottle and then to have dragged them into the street.

To this house went Walter Devon, and found Mrs. Purley herself in the “library.” Thrice a day it served as a dining room; the rest of the time it was open to loungers, but this evening there was not a soul in it other than the landlady.

“You have a quiet house, Mrs. Purley,” Devon remarked in appreciation.

“It is quiet,” said she. “It’s quiet from top to bottom. There ain’t a note of music in it, not even the poppin’ of a few bottles of beer; there is no sound of drunks turnin’ out their pockets full of gold. All these big-hearted Western miners do for me is to flop on their bunks and snore from midnight to mornin’. I would rather be an organ grinder on Third Avenue than Queen of the May in a dead town like this joint!”

“It’s a token of their respect for you, Mrs. Purley,” her lodger commented. “They don’t–”

“It’s a token of the heads that I’ve cracked,” said the gentle lady, “which ain’t a thing to the ones that I’m goin’ to bust. But I dunno how it is. The boys around this neck of the woods don’t seem to know how to absorb their bottles and go to sleep without goin’ through a screechin’ stage like a pack of howlin’ hyenas. I ain’t gunna have it. These cheap sports, the minute they got a jolt of whisky inside of them, they gotta sprain their larynxes tellin’ the world about it. I ain’t gunna furnish a free hall for that kind of song and dance. The next yahoo that opens his trap on high C, I’m gunna bust him for a home run.”

She dropped her formidable fist upon the long table, and it quaked throughout its length.

“Have a drink with me,” invited Devon.

“I don’t mind if I do,” said Mrs. Purley, “if I can pry that ham of a bartender out of his sleep.”

“Maybe he works long hours.”

“Him? He don’t do nothing except wash up his place before the boys go to work.”

“That’s about daybreak?” suggested Devon.

“What of it? Then all he’s gotta do is to stand behind his nice cool bar all day long and serve out drinks. I give him a hand myself when the crush starts. Would I ask an easier job than runnin’ that bar all by myself? I wouldn’t, but the boys don’t feel like drinkin’ too free when there’s a lady around. It sort of cramps their style, I’ve always noticed. I mean except a real gentleman like you, Mr. Devon, which is a pleasure to have you around, I gotta say!”

The bartender was, in fact, soundly snoring. Mrs. Purley roused him with a whack of her broad hand, and he placed foaming glasses of beer before them.

“There ain’t so much in it for the house,” Mrs. Purley explained, “and the turnover of beer ain’t so quick, but it’s more genteel, that’s what I mean to say. Here’s lookin’ in your eye, Mr. Devon, and may she always be good to you! Say, Bill, sweep the cobwebs out of your eye, will you, and look like you hoped to see us agin!”

She said to Devon: “You ain’t gunna dip into this minin’ game, are you?”

“I’ve never dug deeper than the spots on a pack of cards,” he explained.

“That’s the only business,” sighed Mrs. Purley. “Look what an ass Jim was when he had everything goin’ good; he had to switch off and doctor the luck he was havin’. The world with a fence around it wasn’t good enough for Jim, but he had to have it set in platinum, the big sap.”

A chair scraped in the “library.” Glancing through the door, Devon saw the handsome face of Number Two, as he settled down to the table with a newspaper spread before him.

“Who is that?” Devon asked.

“That’s Grierson,” said Mrs. Purley.

“A fine-looking fellow!” said Devon.

“Him? For a picture he is! I tell you what kind he is; in the Bowery it’s so thick with them that they squash under foot. What’s the name of them white flowers that turn yellow and rotten when you handle ’em? He’s a white camellia, he is. And under the pit of his arm he’s got a thorn that’ll repeat six times. Look at those long fingers! He never did no honest stroke, I’ll tell a man! Pretty kids like him is what has brought down the price of murder in Manhattan to fifty bucks a throw; and a dray horse costs as much as a bank president. So long, Mr. Devon; it’s been a real pleasure to have this little chat with you. If anybody disturbs you in my house, you let me know and I’ll spread ’em out as thin as gold leaf. Good night!”

Mrs. Purley disappeared with a long stride. Devon, strolling into the library, found for himself another paper not more than a month old, and tried to bring himself to a state of interest in the “news.” He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter before eleven, and if all went as scheduled, Mr. Murderer Grierson should be at work in this house within fifteen minutes. Quietly Devon promised himself that he would not be far away when the crisis came!

“Gotta match?” asked Grierson.

He passed the box across the table. Grierson thanked him from around a cigarette; plainly he wanted to talk.

He said: “Is that a straight game of faro they got at the Palace?”

“I’ve never bucked it,” Devon replied.

“Take it from me, and don’t,” snarled handsome young Grierson. “It’s the limit, the raw deal that they give you there!”

“Ah?”

“Sure, I never seen nothin’ like it. One of these days some hard-boiled bird is gunna cop the box and look at the inside of it. I come pretty near doin’ it myself, but, aw, what’s the good?”

“To show up a crooked game? A great deal of good, I should say.”

“Should you?” yawned Grierson. “Aw, I dunno. You take the way a guy’s money floats away, it don’t make so much difference. Most usually the ponies get my wad, and I dunno that faro has anything on the ponies. Whatcha think?”

Devon merely nodded as the other man rattled on. It was only five minutes before the hour. Perhaps he could keep the killer engaged for the extra moments.

In the distance a clock began to chime with an impatient rapidity, and Grierson’s talk died away as he listened. Yet he made no offer to move from his chair, but looked with a curious intensity into Devon’s face.

And suddenly the latter understood. The killing was truly determined for eleven o’clock, and he, for mysterious reasons, was to be the victim!

III. A Confession

THAT hurrying toll of the clock had reached nine when Devon ventured a hasty glance over his shoulder which told him, he thought, that a shadowy form moved past the open screen door behind him.

He looked back toward young Grierson, ready for trouble, and trouble was there. The shoulder of that worthy young man was hunched and his right hand flung back for the draw when Devon fired.

The draw was a matter which never bothered him greatly, for the simple reason that, in such affairs as this, he never pulled a weapon. He carried in his coat pocket a single shot pistol with a stub nose, so that it was easily accommodated and made no bulge at all–or at least nothing to speak of. But it fired a forty-five slug with enough force to knock a man down at close range, and that was, after all, what a full-sized Colt accomplished.

It took a great deal of practice to handle the weapon with any accuracy, but such encounters as need surprise attacks are usually almost body to body. So he dropped his hand into his pocket, pulled the trigger, and stepped back a little, to await the fall of young Grierson with a bullet hole torn through his stomach.

But Grierson did not fall. The pocket of Walter Devon filled with hot fumes, and suddenly he realized that the shot he fired was a blank!

Grierson, with an oath, had snatched at his own gun, and his face wrinkled with disgust as the gun hung. He jerked again and there was a loud tearing of cloth, while Devon saw the big revolver swing clear.

He had three choices. He could race for the door, plunge under the table, or drive straight at the gunman. Devon took the third choice, because both of the others invited a bullet in the back; and a natural left hook which had helped him through his school days lodged accurately on the side of Grierson’s chin.

It had an effect almost as potent as a large caliber bullet. As the knees of Grierson buckled and his eyes turned blank, Devon received the gun from the numbed fingers of the killer with one hand, and with the other he eased the youngster into a chair.

Over the head of Grierson he stared at the screen door, but no form stirred there. He glanced down and spun the cylinder of the Colt. There was no doubt about the reality of the bullets which filled that gun; there was no doubt, either, as to the reality of the murder plot which had been formed against him, or the cunning of the rascals who had picked the charge from his gun before he engaged.

The voice of Mrs. Purley was heard in the distance. She came bulging suddenly through a doorway, thrusting a pair of sleepy, yawning men before her.

“If you call yourselves men, you hulking calves,” said Mrs. Purley, “step out and do something. There’s murder around here–I heard a gun–hey, what? Mr. Devon, or I’m a liar!”

Devon stood behind the chair of Grierson and passed the Colt into his pocket. It was very much more bulky, but his grip was comfortably on its handle, and he pressed the muzzle against the back of the man’s neck.

“I was talking to Grierson,” he explained, “and while I was talking, I tried to demonstrate a little gun of mine. The trigger has a very light pull; I’m sorry for the noise!”

“Is that all?” the widow inquired. “Young man, you look as if you’d had a hole poked through your gizzard. Are you all right?”

“Me?” Grierson said faintly. “Sure, I’m all right. What should be wrong with me?”

“Go back to bed,” Mrs. Purley ordered her two champions, and they sleepily obeyed. She confronted Devon, arms akimbo, saying:

“I dunno what the game is, Mr. Devon, but there ain’t any shootin’ allowed in this house. You mind what I say. I like you fine, but there’s nothing like a coupla killin’s to give a place a bad name!”

And with this mild admonition, she disappeared.

Grierson slowly rose from the chair and found the muzzle of his own gun lodged in the pit of his stomach; he raised his hands with a groan.

“What’s the main idea?” said Grierson. “I got no more poison aboard. But where did you get that hook? I thought I’d ducked it when it jumped down and nicked me. Ain’t I seen you work in the ring, Slim?”

Devon “fanned” his man with care. There was, in fact, no other sign of a weapon than a slingshot secured to the wrist of Grierson with an elastic band, so that it could be shaken down into the tips of his fingers at the first emergency. He took the slingshot as well, though Grierson protested.

“What’s a little thing like that in this alley?” Grierson asked sadly.

“It’s better with me,” said Devon. “I don’t like to make you feel lonesome, Grierson, but I think this will just fit into my pocket.”

And he took the other into the farthest corner of the room, where neither door nor window looked in upon them. There he sat him down and stood Grierson before him, his shoulders against the wall.

“Grierson,” he began, “I never saw you before to-night.”

“No,” said Grierson, “I don’t suppose you did.”

“Somebody put you onto this job?”

The boy was silent, looking at the floor, his handsome face sullen and dejected.

“There are two ways of handling this job,” Devon continued. “One is to turn you over to the sheriff. That would land you in a jail where the walls are not very thick. The other way is to march you down town and make a little speech in any saloon, telling them just what has been done to me up here.”

“Try it!” said Grierson defiantly. “There ain’t a thing you can prove!”

“Powder burns on the inside of my pocket, and yet no hole punched through the cloth, I’d call that sufficient proof that my gun had had its teeth pulled before you came here to murder me, my friend. People in this part of the world don’t mind a gunfight, now and then, as long as it’s fair. But they hate dirty murder. I know exactly how they feel, because I’m a Westerner myself. And if I tell them what I have to say, they’ll believe me, young fellow, and they’ll take you out and hang you to a high tree.”

During this quiet talk, Grierson gradually had been losing color. Now he fumbled at the back of a chair and finally slumped into it. He kept passing his fingers over the bruised place on his jaw, looking more and more blankly.

“I dunno how it happened,” said Grierson finally, more to himself than to his companion. “The old gun sort of hitched onto my trousers. My God, it never done that before!”

Then his fury blazed, wide-awake.

“You’d be clean in hell, by now, if you hadn’t had all the luck!”

“I believe you,” said Devon. “Now, Grierson, I’m sorry about this. It’s a sad thing that your luck ran out on you and your trousers were torn, and all of that; but there’s only one thing I want out of you, and that’s the name of the man who hired you for this piece of work.”

“Nobody hired me,” Grierson snarled.

“Is that final?”

“It is, and you be damned!”

“Stand up, then,” said Devon, “and walk ahead of me; I’m going to take you down town, my friend, and tell some of the boys exactly what you’ve done.”

“I’m not gunna move,” Grierson declared with a sort of childish stubborness.

But Devon smiled, and suddenly the boy leaped to his feet.

“My God,” said he. “You’d–you’d murder me and never care!”

“It isn’t murder to brush your kind out of the way,” he was assured by Devon. “It’s simply an act of public spirit–like seeing that the streets are clean, Grierson! Mind you, you have my word for it. If you’ll tell me the truth, you’re free.”

Grierson raised his hand, slowly–for fear the gesture might be misinterpreted–and loosened his collar. Once more he stared upon the floor, and there is no better way for a man to lose his nerve.

“Whatchawant?” he asked huskily.

“The name of the man who handled my gun, in the first place.”

“I dunno,” said Grierson. “He’s got twenty workin’ for him that could do that trick right under your eyes, and you’d never know–not even a smart guy like you!” the killer finished, some of his usual sneer returning.

“I’ll even drop that,” said Devon. “But who hired you?”

Grierson blinked.

“He’d find me if I fly like a snipe and dodge all the way around the world!” he communed with himself.

“It’s better to fly like a snipe,” Devon retorted, “than to hang by the neck. What do you think?”

Grierson moistened his lips. His shifting eyes flashed upon his captor.

“They’d do it,” said he. “My God, I seen them take out a Mexican last week and string him up. They–they didn’t think nothin’ of murderin’ a guy like that! It was soup for them!”

He shrugged his shoulders; then his whole body shuddered.

“Look here,” he exclaimed suddenly, “you think that you wanta know. You don’t want to know at all. If you know, you’ll know that you’re in the soup, a lot worse than I’ll ever be!”

“I’ve taken chances all my life,” said Devon, “and this will be only one more.”

Grierson closed his eyes, set his teeth, and then he exploded:

“Take it, then! It’s the big guy–it’s the main squeeze himself!”

“What main squeeze?”

“Why, who do I mean but the main squeeze of this joint? It’s the old fat guy himself!”

He was hardly more than whispering this, his eyes bulging.

“I’m still in the dark,” said Devon.

The other made a gesture of the most intense disgust. Then he drew nearer, crouched and tense. As he spoke his face was as that of one who shouted against a great wind, but only a faint whisper came to Devon.

“Burchard!„

IV. A Gambler Shows His Hand

“BURCHARD? The man who owns the gambling house–the Palace? Is that the fellow you mean?”

Grierson glared on each side of him as though tigers were stalking him.

“Put it in the papers, why don’t you?” he snarled. “Hell, is it gunna do anything but get you bumped off all the quicker if you go shoutin’ it all over town?”

“Burchard? Burchard?” said Devon. “By Heavens, it’s not possible. I’ve never laid eyes on him in my life.”

“That’s a lie,” answered the gunman fiercely. “He wanted to buy your land, and you wouldn’t sell!”

“I wouldn’t sell? To Burchard? He never approached me for it. No one but Williams–”

“Why, Clancy Williams is always nothin’ but Burchard’s goat!” the other assured him.

“Williams? Does he belong to Burchard?”

“I’ve said my piece, and I ain’t gunna say another word,” was the reply. “If it don’t suit you–why, break your word, and take me down the line!”

“Very well,” said Devon. “You’ve told me what I asked to know. Good night, Grierson! I’ll keep this on deposit–until to-morrow, say!”

He smiled genially and touched the revolver, while Grierson stood up and walked slowly from the room, pausing once or twice with tightly gripped hands, as though on the verge of whirling about and throwing himself at his conqueror. Then, with a heave of his shoulders, he jerked open the door and was gone.

Devon went up to his bed, locked his door, placed upon his window sill a row of little tin tacks, point up, and then turned in and slept like a sailor, dreamlessly and deep.

In the morning he had an appointment to meet Clancy Williams at the “Two Angels” at ten o’clock, but between the end of his breakfast and that hour he had time on his hands. He employed it by strapping a spring holster under the pit of his left arm; into that holster he fitted a long-nosed Colt and then walked into the woods for practice–a very odd practice, which consisted of sudden snap shots to right and to left, at blazes on trees, and at stumps and stones. He scored his share of misses, his share of hits.

“I’m slow as a fat old dog,” said Walter Devon, “and I’m walking through a fog!”

Before he went back to town, he paused on the edge of the woods. Even at this hour the nearer face of Timbal Mountain was tangled with threads of blue mist, but the lower summits on either side let the full light of the morning into the valley.