'Also, you think I'll be safer there than I would be anywhere else.'
'Well, Brick is a gentleman who rides an idea very hard. If he were to get the drop on you a second time, you might not be so lucky. We have to remember that he would see to it you didn't get an even break.'
Helen locked the back door and, after they were in the street, the front one. They walked toward her home three abreast. The eyes of the men swept the path in front of them and occasionally the road in their rear.
When they reached her house, Helen invited them in to meet her mother, a bright-eyed sprightly lady with whom Hal had frequently swapped badinage. Hal took a raincheck on the young woman's suggestion, explaining that it would be better not to delay their departure.
Miss Barnes thought that was wise. She offered advice hesitantly. 'I think Mr. Stevens is right, Tom. Stay at the ranch and don't go out to work alone. I wish he were staying there, too.'
'Oh, I'm moving out of the danger zone,' Hal replied. 'But you are right about Tom. It's a good rule if in doubt not to take the chance.'
'Which rule I hope you follow, Mr. Stevens,' Helen said dryly.
The two men walked back to the main street together. It was quiet, almost deserted, but that did not prove enemies were not floating about the town. Hal stopped his friend at Sid's Garage. Somebody had stolen the radiator cap of his car and he wanted to get another. Sid found one that would fit.
They crossed the road to an alley, a short cut to the lots where their cars were parked. As they did so, they noticed an old flivver coming down the street toward them. It stopped a little way from them, but by this time they were in the shadows between two buildings.
The road into which they came from the alley was not paved. Between the adobe houses were unfenced lots, where of late those from the M K ranch had taken to leaving their cars because this street was darker and less conspicuous than the main thoroughfare. Hal and Tom separated after a moment of talk, each to go to the place where he had left his automobile. Neither of them saw the shadowy figure creeping up the alley from which they had just emerged.
The moon was not yet up, and in the darkness the man trailing them did not identify the companion of Wall. But he knew the easy gait of the cowboy and after a second or two crossed the road to follow him.
Hal wondered later whether it was sheer chance that made him remember a message he wanted delivered to his foreman and led him to turn his head at that exact moment. The call to Tom died in the throat of Stevens. Wall was walking into the lot where he had left his car and another man who had his back turned to Hal was creeping up behind him. Even if Hal had not seen the revolver in the fellow's hand, he would have recognized the neat slender figure of Fenwick. He padded softly after the man.
'Hold it, Brick,' he shouted presently.
Fenwick whirled. It was too late for him to make for the alley now. He was caught between the two of them. Instantly he flung a long-distance shot at Hal and darted down a path beside a one-story house to a group of small buildings back of it.
Wall ran back to join his companion.
'Look out, Tom!' shouted Hal. 'It's Fenwick.'
There was an adobe wall back of the lot. It was likely that Fenwick would lie crouched behind one of the buildings hoping for a good shot at either Wall or Stevens and in case they crowded him, would go over the wall into the straggly brush of the desert.
'How would it do to circle around to the back of the wall and come at him from the rear?' Hal asked. 'He won't dare try to escape by the road because he'll think we're waiting for him out in front somewhere.'
'Sounds reasonable,' Wall agreed. 'Do we go together?'
They decided that each would make a half-circle in opposite directions, to meet in a few minutes back of the wall. The radius of it must be long enough so that Brick would not be able to see them. Since the darkness still held, that would be not very far.
Both had been big-game hunters and they knew how to move silently. Hal stopped once to listen, but he could not hear even a rumor of Tom's progress. No sound came from the man they were stalking. A barbed-wire fence stopped Hal, but he slid under the lowest strand. He was in a vegetable garden and crossed it on hands and knees. At the back of the lot, he negotiated the wire again very slowly and cautiously, being careful not to put a foot on any dry brush that might crackle in breaking. He realized that this great care might be unnecessary. Fenwick might long since have clambered over the wall and disappeared among the cholla. But he did not think so. Brick was a hardy villain, with a pronounced streak of obstinacy in him. He was crouched back of cover, and he would probably stay there for a time in the hope of getting one of his enemies.
Hal knew a moment later that he had guessed right. The voice of Fenwick came to him out of the darkness. 'Why don't you show up and fight, you damned skulkers?' it called, the defiance a little high and shrill.
The man was getting nervous under the strain, Hal guessed. A long wait in dead silence, with doubts as to what the foe is doing trooping through the mind, is shattering to one's composure.
Hal was back of the wall now, and he crept forward toward it. Soon now, if he had gauged Brick's mentality correctly, the young killer would decide for safety and climb over it to escape.
Back of the wall Hal waited to listen, then stood up and looked over it. He ducked just in time. Fenwick, backing to the wall, began to turn as Hal's head vanished.
The crouching man pressed close to the adobe, every sense alert and wary. He had to judge to the split second the moment of opportunity. His gun still hung in its scabbard. In his right fist the radiator cap was tightly clenched.
Faint sounds told him that Fenwick's hands were resting on the top of the adobe, that his toes were scuffing the soft dirt surface as they came up from the ground. The head of the outlaw showed and leaned forward as the body swung to the top and a leg dropped over. The startled eyes of Fenwick met those of the man he hated. Unable either to attack or defend himself, he lay there helpless while Hal's arm rose and fell. The iron cap crashed against the side of his head.
The force of the blow was deadened by the hat. Fenwick was jarred, but not unconscious. He rolled forward from the wall and grappled with Hal as he went down. The weight of his body dragged Stevens with him. They struggled, their hands searching for grips. Their writhing bodies were so close that neither could reach for a weapon.
Fenwick was as wiry and as muscular as a wildcat. Before Hal could get set, the man had rolled over and was on top. His feet were flung wide to grip the earth for a leverage to hold the advantage. With a mighty heave Hal threw him over toward the wall. The knees of the cattleman clamped against the sides of his foe. He had clung to the radiator cap through the struggle and he smashed it against the distorted face glaring up at him. It struck by chance the vulnerable spot on the chin. Brick's arms and body relaxed. He fell back, completely out.
Hal heard the slap of running feet. Wall pulled up beside him, gun in hand.
'You got him!' he cried. 'Is he dead?'
'Just knocked out.'
Tom stared down at the white, still face, then looked at Hal with a cold, fierce urge shining in his eyes. 'He would be better dead.' The words fell softly.
'Yes,' Hal agreed, but shook his head.
'He never gave a man a break in his life. If he was where you are and you there, how long would you last?'
There was no chance for argument on that point. Hal looked at his companion, a trace of a grim smile on his lips.
'All right, Tom,' he said. 'You kill him.'
Wall gazed at the lax body and the boyish face. 'I reckon I can't do it,' he answered, anger in his voice.
'I thought not. We're under the disadvantage of not being murderers.'
'How came you to get him? Didn't he have a gun in his hand?'
'He had to shove it into its holster while he was climbing the wall. I figured he would have to do that, and I caught him at just the right tick of time.'
Wall thought bitterly, 'He could just as well have shot him then and saved us both a heap of trouble.' Hal guessed what he was thinking. 'Must be a soft streak in me, Tom. I couldn't do it while he didn't have his gun out.' He said it almost as if it were an apology.
The other man nodded. 'Sure. That same disadvantage. What are you going to do with him?'
