elaborate sweep as he passed.
'Shore am sorry to have butted in,' he said, and there was that in his tone which made the remark an insult.
Receiving no reply, he loped slowly on, and with a mocking wave of the hand vanished round a further curve. Phil, stealing an embarrassed glance at her companion, saw that he was staring after the intruder, his eyes bleak and his jaws clamped together.
'Who's that fella?' he asked, almost roughly.
'Devint,' she replied. 'I wish he hadn't seen us; he's sore at the Lazy M because the foreman fired him, and he'll--talk.'
'Huh! We better be gettin' back,' Larry said.
The ride home was made almost in silence. The cowboy was forcing the pace, as though in a hurry to get home. He spoke seldom, and all the gaiety had gone from his face, to be replaced by a grim intentness. The girl tried to rouse him.
'You look as if you were going to kill someone,' she bantered. His head came round with a jerk, and she saw his cheeks redden. Then he laughed.
'I am,' he said. 'I'm agoin' to just naturally slay Jonah if he ain't got a good meal ready.'
Phil said no more; the jocular reply had only served to deepen her doubts; she felt uneasy, frightened. When they arrived at nhe ranch, Larry took the ponies to the corral straight away, which was unusual, and presently she saw him, mounted on a fresh horse, shoot out on the trail for town; he had not waited to feed. Her feeling of unrest pursued her, and when Severn returned with the outfit, she called him aside and related the incident of the afternoon.
'Larry looked as if he recognised Devint, and--hated him,yet he asked me who he was,' she said. 'Of course, the man was insolent, but I somehow feel it wasn't only that.'
'Damnation,' swore the foreman, and forgot to apologise. 'I reckon yo're right, Miss Masters. For some reason or other, he's gone to find that scallywag. Devint's yellow, an' a bad actor, but he's reckoned fast with a gun.'
'Oh, hurry, perhaps you'll be in time to prevent their meeting,' she urged.
'If I ain't, an' anythin' happened to Larry, Mister Devint won't see another sunrise,' was Severn's sinister promise.
Striding down to the corral, he caught and saddled a horse and set out for the town at full speed. He had no hope of catching Barton, but there was a chance that the two men had not yet met.
The 'Come Again' was filling up for the evening festivities, and Muger, the fat, oily-faced proprietor, rubbed his hands and smirked contentedly as he glanced over the gathering; it looked like being a profitable night.
'Wonder what's bitin' Bart?' he muttered.
In truth, the Bar B owner's face justified the title by which he was commonly known. Standing apart, he was talking in low tones to Devint, and it was very evident that the conversation was not of a pleasing nature so far as the rancher was concerned. The cowboy had, in fact, been relating his encounter with Phil in the afternoon, and with the savage malice of one who delights in giving pain, he had lied, cunningly but convincingly. Bartholomew's rage, fanned to fury by the recital, showed plainly in his distorted features.
'I'll give five hundred bucks to the man who puts that pup outa business,' he said vehemently, and then seeing the satirical look of inquiry on the other's face, he added, 'I'd do it myself an' be a heap pleased to, but it'd get me in wrong with the girl.'
Devint nodded, satisfied with the explanation and the chance of earning the money. The fact that he had to extinguish a human life to do so meant nothing to him; he had killed men before, and for less reward. It was at this moment that Larry entered the saloon.
'There's the fella himself,' Bart whispered, and immediately left the man whose gun he had hired and went out of the saloon.
Larry's quick eye had seen the movement, and he guessed that Devint had wasted no time in telling his tale. He looked round the room, nodded to Ridge, who was playing poker with two of his outfit and the storekeeper, Callahan, and then fixed his attention to Devint, who was now talking to three other men.
'Bah! Wimmeln is all alike,' the bully sneered. 'Take that Masters girl, f'r instance; I come on her this afternoon in Snake Coulee, a-kissin' an' cuddlin' one of her own men, a ornery forty per cowpunch, who ain't been in the outfit more'n a month or so.'
He leered triumphantly at his audience, some of whom sniggered. Others who had been only half listening, suddenly became aware that there was a purpose behind the talk, and ceased their games to watch. Utter silence seized the room, and all eyes were turned upon the alert, tense figure of the Lazy M cowboy, at whom it was evident the slander had been directed.
'Devint ! '
The word came like a shot from lips tightly set, and was followed by a scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet, ashose in the vicinity unostentatiously withdrew from the line of fire between the two men. Larry, his right hand hanging by his side with fingers apart, glared at the bully through slitted eyes, oblivious to all else. The rage which filled him was not patent to the spectators, he was not even consciousofit himself; all he knew was that something evil stood before him and he must destroy it.
As for the traducer, his brutal face betrayed one feeling only --that of venomous satisfaction; he had obtained the necessary provocation to justify the killing. So he grinned insolently as he answered :
'My name. Why, gents, if it ain't the guy I bin tellin' yu about--Phil Masters' latest fancy. Look at him a- blushin'.'
In truth, Larry's face was red, but his voice was ice-cold, cutting, and charged with deadly menace; the added insult did not cause the lossofself-control.
'Devint, yu are a liar an' a coward,' he said deliberately. There could be only one reply to that. Stung as by the lashofa whip, the bully snatched at his gun.
'Yu damned whelp ! ' he roared.
The guns spat flame at the same second, and the Lazy M cowboy spun half-round as from a blow under the impact of a heavy slug in his left shoulder. Devint spluttered an oath, rocked on his feet, and pitched sideways to the floor, his pistol clattering beside him; he had been shot through the chest. Seeing that he was not yet dead, Larry staggered forward, and kicking away the weapon, knelt beside him.
'Devint,' he said. 'There's somethin' I want yu to know.'
He whispered a few words and the eyesofthe dying man opened in wide surprise. 'Hell ! ' he gasped. 'Yu--' A raucous rattle in his throat choked further utterance, and his head fell back. Devint was done with bullying.
Larry climbed painfully to his feet and slumped into a chair someone pushed forward. His wound was bleeding, and he feltsick and giddy. Ridge and his men pounced upon him and began to bandage the hurt. The hush that had endured ended, and the spectatorsofthe duel began to discuss it, crowded round to look at the stricken loser and the wounded victor. In the midstofthe excitement the sheriff arrived.
Some of the crowd made way, and at the sightofthe body, the sheriff gasped in surprise. 'Why, it's Devint,' he said. 'I thought--they told me it was someone else.' An unprejudiced observer might have said that he was disappointed.
A dozen eager witnessesofthe fight gave him the details and the officer's bilious eyes turned with evil satisfaction to the hurt cowboy.
'Well, yu've shore bin askin' for trouble, an' now yu got it,' he said. 'I'm guessin' this will put yu in the pen.'
'Better guess again, sheriff, an' mebbe yu'll be right,' suggested the drawling voice of the Lazy M foreman.
He had come in unobserved, and now stood leaning idly against the bar, his thumbs hooked in his belt, and a look of mingled amusement and contempt on his face. Tyler jerked round, his hand flying to his gun-butt.
'Don't yu,' urged the newcomer gently. 'Yu ain't no more fit to die than yu are to live.'
Tyler's face turned a pasty yellow; his gesture had been a bluff, and he was conscious that the other man knew it. He had no intentionofforcing a fight with this cold-blooded, mocking devil. The entryofthe Bar B owner
