Governor could see him.'
He gave an order and Silver, supporting his burden easily with his left arm, gripped the lolling head with his enormous other paw and held it upright, as in a vice.
'you have heard of dying by inches,' Satan said coolly. 'This man is dying by fractions of an inch. You see that groove extending from the forehead back over the scalp? Well, every day I deepen it the smallest shade by a bullet. Eventually, I shall touch the brain, and then ...'
Into the piteous eyes of the prisoner, near blind with pain, came a spark of life, and from the mumbling lips a weak wail. 'For God's sake, kill me.'
The masked man laughed hideously. 'Always the same prayer,' he gibed, and finished with a blasphemy.
Stepping back several paces, he drew a pistol, aimed and fired. The shot drew a despairing moan from the victim, and Sudden could see the faintest trickle of blood from the groove. The marksman looked at him triumphantly.
'That's shooting, my gun-slinging friend,' he sneered.
The puncher did not appear impressed. 'Fair,' he admitted. 'But if that hombre was fit an' had a forty-five in his fist ...'
'Can you equal it?''Shore, firin' at a fixed mark is dead easy.'
'Prove it,' the other snarled.
Sudden shrugged; this was the invitation for which he had been angling. Drawing one of his guns, he raised it slowly, took careful aim, and fired. The bullet struck an inch below the groove and Dolver's head slipped from the dwarf's grasp and fell forward. For one second, the bandit could not believe what he saw, and then: 'you clumsy fool, you've killed him,' he cried, almost beside himself with rage. 'I've a mind to...'
Apparently the visitor was too chagrined to resent either the epithet or the threat.
'Which I'm allowin' it was a poor shot,' he said dejectedly. 'Allus do forget that this gun throws a mite low. yu certainly can shoot, mister.'
The humility and flattery restored the masked man to his normal state of imperturbability. 'My followers call me `Chief,' ' he pointed out.
'Suits me, but I ain't one of 'em yet. Let's get out'n here an' talk it over--corpses ain't the best o' company.'
Leaving the man whom Sudden, at the risk of his own life, had mercifully released from horrible torment, lying on the floor of his prison, they returned to the upper room.
'What yu want I should do?' the puncher asked. 'Rustle some cows for yu?'
Satan looked at him. Was the fellow really as stupid as he seemed to be--a mere creature of brawn without brain? Even so, he might be useful.
'The rustling is a small matter, done to annoy Keith,' he explained. 'I want to make him desperate, force him to fight, and then--I'll kill him.'
The last three words were spoken with incredible ferocity, hissed through shut teeth.
'It is said he's yore father,' Sudden reminded.
'No, he disowned me, said I wasn't fit to bear his name, and that he wished never to see my face again. Well, I have acquired another name and concealed my face, but, by Christmas, he shan't rob me of my inheritance. Now do you understand?'
'Shore,' was the reply. 'It's a good range.'
This fatuous answer produced a further probing regard, but the speaker's features were wooden. The bandit nodded.
'Since we understand one another, get back to it,' he said. 'Lagley will give you my orders. Remember, if you play false, I shall know, and--you have seen how I deal with those who offend me.'
The visitor made an evident effort to regain his assurance. 'Threats don't scare me none whatever,' he boasted. 'Keep 'em for those they may. So long.'
With an air of insolent bravado, he swung from the room, but it was a pleasure to see the sky again. His horse welcomed him with a whinny, and mounting, he rode slowly to the gate. His gloomy expression was misunderstood by the keeper.
'Ain't feelin' so fresh, huh?' he commented, but not until the rider was out of hearing. 'Thought he'd larn you.' When he was well beyond the range of prying eyes, Sudden straightened up in his saddle. His face was drawn and set with resolve. He had been driven to shoot the man he had come to save, just as he would have put out of its misery a suffering beast, and it hurt.
'If ever I'm in a like case, I hope someone will act the same,' he muttered, and then, 'I had to do it.'
But the devil who had made such a deed necessary must pay, and in full.
Chapter XI
Joan Keith reined in her pony, leaned back in the saddle, and drew a long breath of profound satisfaction. She loved this untamed land, with its sandy scrub-dotted wastes, fragrant pine-woods, gloomy gorges, and inhospitable hills. Out of an unclouded vault above, the sun flung its fire relentlessly, but the night would bring a gracious coolness. The aromatic scent of the sage stung her nostrils. Behind stretched an undulating plain, the short brown grass of which fattened the Double K herds, and in front, a welter of low, broken ridges rising step by step to pinnacled grey peaks. It was upon these that her gaze rested longest. Among them--just where, she did not know-- lay Hell City, and her eyes grew misty as she thought of the wayward boy who was wrecking his life there. Not his only, but her own, though this was something she fought not to admit, even to herself.
'Yes, it's a great pity, but when old men are tyrannical ...' The voice, familiar, but with a harsh intonation that was strange, startled her, and set her pony rearing. Her capable hands soon brought it under control and she turned to face the intruder, who had stolen up behind her, the sandy soil deadening the footfalls of his mount. Her face flushed and then paled as she saw the red mask beneath the high-crowned Stetson. Dumbly she noted the dandified cowboy rig, the silver spurs, and lavishly decorated saddle on the fine black he bestrode.
'You could always ride, Joan,' he went on, and, reading her thought, 'Yes, a good horse, Arab and mustang speed and stamina. I call him `Pluto'--rather appropriate, I fancy.'
Below the pulled-down brim of the big hat she could see the pale eyes appraising her with cold curiosity. The sneeringly polite manner jarred on her, and she remained silent.
'You don't seem very glad to see me, yet we were good friends once,' he said.
'Did you expect I would be?' she cried, stirred to anger and speech by the reference to earlier and happier days. 'You are not the man I knew; you have changed--horribly.'
'And you too have changed--charmingly,' he smiled. 'You were a pretty girl; now, you are a beautiful woman. By Christmas, it must be getting on for two years since I saw you. We must meet more often.'
She shook her head. 'Impossible, unless you give up this hideous masquerade and abandon the dreadful life you are leading,' she said. 'Won't you do it, Jeff? Your father--'
'Hates me, and would hound down and hang me if he had the power,' he broke in fiercely. 'Within the past few weeks he has hired a noted killer from Texas to help him accomplish that very thing. No, like Napoleon, I am a Man of Destiny. I must follow my fate, even--'
'If it leads to the gallows,' she finished.
'Yes, even so, but it will not. The leaden-witted fools round here regard me as the chief of a band of criminals, hiding under a fantastic name, ready to rob for mere gain. Bah ! I care little for gold, but a great deal for the power it can give me. You have said I am changed, Joan. you are right; I have found myself; I have ambition.'
'A poor one--to be an infamous outlaw.'
'That is simply a stepping-stone to greater things. When I am the largest landowner in northern Arizona the past will be forgotten; the world forgives all to the successful.'
'Such dreams are madness. The Government--'
'Has far too much on hand to worry about the West for years. When it does, I shall be established and-- respectable. Some of our biggest cattlemen started as rustlers and then stole the land they now occupy. I shall begin with the Double K, which is mine by right.'
'At present it belongs to Kenneth Keith, and he is neither old nor ailing,' she reminded.
