'Mebbe you'd better; I've got ways o' persuadin' folk--ask yore friend Flint, if yu ever see him again. Yu can stand up on yore hind-legs an' shuck the rope. I don't s'pose yu'll try anythin' but I hope--yu will.' When the man was on his feet, he added sharply: 'Where did yu get that gun yu dropped?'
'Found it.'
'Right. I'm lookin' for the owner, an' yo're goin' to help. Lead his hoss, Tiny--the gent prefers to walk.'
'Me, walk?' Bundy protested angrily. 'You can't do that.'
'Not likely, but yu can,' Sudden grinned. 'An' I hope, for yore sake, we don't have to go far.'
The prisoner's fury deprived him of caution. 'How'n hell should I know where the brat--' He stopped, aware that he had been betrayed into a folly. The grim faces of the three men apprised him that he was in grave peril. An inspiration came. 'Awright, I'll tell, though I promised not to,' he said. 'I met the hobo kid totin' that gun, which I figured he'd pinched. He sold it to me for twenty bucks--told me he was sick to death o' the West an' wanted to git to Noo York. Last I see of him he was makin' for the Bend.'
Sudden stepped forward, snatched out the man's gun, and examined it; one chamber contained an empty shell. 'I shot at a rattler--an' missed,' Bundy explained.
Bleak eyes bored into his. 'Another lie from yu an' I'll be shootin' at one, an' I won't miss,' Sudden rasped. 'Climb yore hoss; if we don't find Yorky, alive an' well, yu hang.'
'Say, Jim, why not string him up now, an' if the kid's all right, we can come back an' cut him down,' Blister suggested.
Bundy's expression became more uneasy; he knew that the proposal was not so jocular as it sounded; there was no mirth in the speaker's voice.
'There was nothin' the matter with him when we parted,' he said. 'I'm tellin' you.'
'What yu tell us ain't evidence,' Sudden replied dryly. 'Lead on to where yu last saw him, an' if yore memory fails yu, pray--hard.'
Grey-faced, the prisoner got into his saddle, and Tiny dropped the loop of the lariat over his shoulders again. He was trapped, and the only hope of saving his skin lay in finding that accursed boy. For this saturnine, black- haired stranger, who had thwarted him for the second time, had not the appearance of one to make idle threats. So he obeyed the order, conscious that, at the least sign of treachery, the drawn guns behind him would speak. Fifteen minutes later he halted his horse.
'It was somewheres aroun' here,' he said. 'Wanted the way to the Bend, he did, an' I told him to point for that block o' pines, an' keep goin'.'
They reached the trees, dark and forbidding in the fading rays of the sun.
'He wouldn't go through,' Sudden decided. 'Which way round did yu tell him?'
'To the left,' Bundy returned sullenly.
'We'll try the right--he may not have believed yu neither.'
They circled the little forest, and had gone less than half a mile when the search ended; at the sight of the boy lying beside the body of his pony, Sudden rapped out an oath, and the grip on his gun tightened; the Wagon- wheel foreman was very near to death at that moment. Had not Yorky lifted his head...
'Jim,' he cried. 'I knowed yer'd come.' His red, swollen eyes rested on Bundy, and then travelled to the new scabbard hanging on the puncher's saddle-horn. 'Gimme my gat,' he added hoarsely.
'Easy, son,' Sudden replied. 'What happened?'
The tale was soon told. He had strayed further than he intended, and had the bad luck to meet Bundy, who chased, roped, and threw him. When he stood up, he was knocked down again, despoiled of his rifle, and ordered to get out of the country for good, or he would be shot. 'Then he killed pore of Shut-eye, the rotten, cowardly--' The quavering, high-pitched voice trailed off in a venomous string of epithets to terminate in a spasm of coughing.
'Yu didn't go,' Sudden said.
'I started, but when he rid off, I come back--ter my pal.'
Bundy saw the faces of his captors grow more and more rigid as the damning recital proceeded. He must say something, or wish the world good-bye.
'All lies,' he said. 'I bought an' paid for his gun, an' he asked me to finish off the hors--claimed to be scared the Bend folk might think he'd stole it.'
'Blister, search the boy, an' his saddle pockets, an' see how much coin he has,' the puncher ordered.
The cowboy did the job thoroughly, even making Yorky take off his boots. 'One dollar an' two bits,' Blister announced, when the operation was completed.
Sudden looked at the convicted liar. 'Get down,' he said. A turn of the wrist sent the noose clear of the captive's head, and the puncher coiled the rope as he walked towards him, and threw it on the ground.
'I've met up with some pretty scaly reptiles, but yu top the list, Bundy,' he began quietly. 'yu know this lad is in pore health, yet yu yank him out'n the saddle, beat him up, steal his gun, shoot his hoss, an' turn him loose to tramp to the Bend. Even if he knowed the way, with night comin' on, no food an' no blanket, it was a shore thing he'd never make it, an' yu meant he shouldn't. What yu aimed at was plain murder. Got anythin' against him, or was it just because he belongs to the Circle Dot?'
The foreman's face grew darker. 'He's a dirty little snitch; it was him wised you up 'bout the Bend affair, an' lost me twenty-five thousand bucks,' he growled. 'Ain't that enough?'
Sudden was surprised, but did not show it. Where had Bundy obtained this information? Only he, Dan, Burke, and Yorky knew the inner history of the hold-up; perhaps the boy himself had boasted. Anyway, that problem could wait; there was a more pressing one on hand. He replied to the ruffian's question.
'Dessay yu've killed for less,' he said acidly, and paused, weighing up the situation. 'I oughta leave yu on a tree, but mebbe yu were a man once, an' yu shall have a chance to die like one.' He threw Bundy's gun on the grass. 'If yu get me, yu go free. Pick her up.'
'An' be downed while I'm stoopin',' the other jeered.
'I won't draw till yo're all set,' Sudden said contemptuously.
The promise--which he did not doubt--made the Wagon-wheel man think. To offer such a great advantage, his opponent must be infernally fast or a fool, and Bundy had good reason to know that he was not the latter. His confidence in his own prowess was shaken. Another thought came, a desperate expedient; if he could kill Green, he did not fear his companions--they would be taken by surprise and unable to act immediately.
He bent quickly, grasped the gun and, instead of rising, tilted the muzzle upwards and pulled the trigger. Even as he did so, Sudden--watching for some such act of treachery--drew and fired. Bundy's shot missed by a bare inch, and before he could repeat the attempt his weapon was driven from his grip by the puncher's bullet. He clawed for it with his other hand, but Sudden sprang in, kicked it away, and sheathing his own gun, cried:
'Stand up, yu yella dawg, an' take what's comin' to yu.'
Bundy was ready enough; he knew that ninety-nine men out of a hundred would instantly have driven a bullet through him after the failure of his dastardly trick; he had been lucky to meet the hundredth; but with the passing of the shadow of death, his hatred of the man who had spared him increased. Truly, with some natures, a favour from a foe is a bitter pill to swallow.
Bandy had one more remark to make. 'Them friends o' yourn keepin' outa this?'
'They won't be my friends if they interfere,' Sudden said.
'Good enough,' the foreman replied. His confidence in
himself was returning. He had a well-earned reputation as an
exponent of the rough and tumble frontier method of settling quarrels. 'I've bin waitin' to put my paws on you for an interferin' houn'.'
'Yu couldn't find me, o' course,' Sudden sneered. 'I bide my time. I got the kid, an' yo're here.'
'Well, what are yu waitin' for, the dark, so that yu can run away again?'
The taunt got through the foreman's hide, tough as it was. 'No,' he bellowed. 'Here I come,' and rushed in with fists flying.
'An' there yu go,' Sudden retorted, as he drove a lightning left to the face which sent the man reeling.
He staggered to his feet and fought back with blind fury, reckless of the hurt he received, driven by an insensate desire to get his enemy by the throat and slowly squeeze the life out of him. But he had little chance against one who used his head as well as hands; straight jolts to the jaw and body met his wild rushes, and battered down his feeble defence. Opposed to that scientific hammering, his savage lunges were of no avail.
Once only a swinging fist got past the Circle Dot man's guard, and floored him. But he was up instantly, and
