once--before I throw in with him.'
Bleke nodded approvingly. 'I expect I can leave you to make your own plan of action. All the same, I wish I didn't have to send you, but you're my best bet, and this snake has to be scotched. Also, I'm worried about Dolver.'
'Any ranches around there?'
'Several, and, of course, they are losing stock. The biggest appears to be the Double K, owned by Kenneth Keith. The nearest settlement is a place called Dugout.'
Sudden stood up. 'I guess I got all I want,' he said.
The older man smiled and shook his head. 'Not quite, I think,' he replied, producing a bag which clinked musically as he set it on the table. 'Golden bullets, Jim. you'll need them; sometimes they're even more effective than those you feed to your gun.'
'I got money,' the cowboy objected.
'Glad to know it, but you're working for me. Also, you are about to make war, and that can't be done without a well-provided pocket. That's all I can do except give you a free hand: clean that gang up if you have to shoot every crooked scamp in it.' The grey eyes were hard as granite, the firm lips clamped like a vice. 'I'm wishing you luck.'
'Thank yu, seh,' the puncher said, and gripped the proffered palm.
Through the murky pane of the window, Bleke watched him swing lightly to the saddle of the waiting horse and ride slowly down the sordid little street, unconcerned, inscrutable.
'Damned if I can fathom him,' he muttered. 'For all his record, I'll wager he's white, and nerve--you might think I'd just sent him to the store for baccy. If anyone can outwit and outshoot that fiend ...'
Chapter II
The man on the black horse halted at the crest of the steep bluff which for nearly half an hour he had been laboriously climbing, and sat, rolling a cigarette, taking in the view. It was Nature in the raw. Immediately before him, the ground fell away in a long, rocky slope, sparsely clad with storm-stunted vegetation and terminating at the bottom of a vast basin like the crater of a gigantic extinct volcano. The floor of this enormous hollow was scarred and fissured with what looked to be cracks but which he knew for deep gorges, twisting and mounting to the encircling rim-rock. Forests of black firs, stretches of green park carpeted with tall grass and flowers, small deserts, their yellow sand greyed with sage, provided a bewildering panorama. In the far distance, a range of purple hills.
'Shore is a good country to hide in,' the rider soliloquized. 'A fella could be real lonesome here, if he was honin' to be.'
As if in direct contradiction, the report of a rifle rang out and the bullet whined through the air above his head. Immediately following it came a command:
'That's just a warnin'. H'ist yore han's, come right ahead an' explain yoreself.'
The face of the man to whom the words were addressed wore a comical look of chagrin. 'Just 'cause yu ain't glimpsed a soul for twenty-four hours yu act like yu was never goin' to again,' he told himself. 'Why didn't yu toot a horn, light a fire, or somethin'--not but what standin' there on the skyline was just as good.' A querulous call interrupted his self condemnation. 'Gettin' impatient, huh? Well, seein' yu got the drop ...'
Dissipating wisps of smoke some hundreds of yards below showed whence the shot had come, and with a shrug of his shoulders, he began the descent of the slope. He was angry, not only with himself for his lack of ordinary caution, but with the other man. That bullet was entirely superfluous. Missing him by little, had he moved at the moment he might have got in the path of it.
'I said for yu to put yore paws up,' came a rough reminder.
'Shore yu did, but my hoss needs 'em--he ain't no catamount,' the other retorted, as he picked a way down the decline. 'Allasame, I'd as lief break my neck as be shot.'
Having complied with the command he leaned back in the saddle, guiding the animal with his knees towards the boulder behind which the ambusher was waiting. He was within a few yards of it when the black slithered on a strip of shale and almost fell. The violent lurch appeared to nearly unseat the rider, who only saved himself by a quick snatch at the saddle-horn. When his hands went up again they did not go far and each held a six-shooter. The face of the fellow who emerged from his retreat to see what had caused the clatter was ludicrous with surprised disgust. It was not an attractive face, the eyes were set too close, and the uncared-for beard failed to conceal a loose-lipped mouth garnished with tobacco-stained teeth in which there were gaps. His rifle was in the crook of his arm, a fact which drew a hard smile from the man on the black.
'Thought yu had a shore thing, huh?' he said. 'Drop that gun, pronto, an' then unbuckle yore belt an' step away from it. Any funny business an' yu'll be rappin' at the door o' hell just as soon as it takes yu to get there.' When the order had been obeyed, he sheathed one of his guns and pointed hisremarks with the other. 'One ca'tridge is all I need to kill a coyote, an' there's six in this li'l persuader. What's the idea, holdin' up an unoffendin' traveller?'
'Wanted to know suthin' about yu, that's all,' the other said sullenly. 'There's queer doin's around here.'
'yo're tellin' me,' was the sarcastic rejoinder. 'Yu don't chance to be a sheriff, marshal, or any vermin o' that kind, do you?'
'I'm Steve Lagley, foreman o' the Double K, an' if yo're aimin' to stay in these parts it won't pay yu to be at outs with me,' was the snarling reply. 'Speakin' o' names, who might yu be?'
'There's a whole jag o' folk I might be, from the President o' the United States down, or up, accordin' to yore political views,' the stranger retorted. 'If it's any o' yore damn business, I'm James Green, a puncher from Texas.'
'Travellin' for yore health, I reckon,' Lagley said, with a heavy sneer.
'yu reckon good--been to school, mebbe. Yeah, the doc said my nerves was all shot up--any quick noise or movement sets 'em jangling an' I have to grip my fists to control 'em. Edgin' nearer that belt is on'y takin' yu into temptation; yu'd never make it, hombre, an' I hate diggin', 'specially without a spade.'
The badgered man, well aware that he was entirely at the mercy of this sardonic person who had so neatly turned the table upon him, expressed his feeling with more force than elegance. His audience listened with an expression of shocked reproof.
'That settles it--couldn't 'a' been a Sunday school,' Sudden reflected aloud. He slipped a forefinger through the trigger-guard and revolved the weapon rapidly--the 'road-agent's roll.' Lagley gazed with fascinated eyes, acutely conscious that the circling muzzle did not deviate in the least, and that at any moment, either by accident or design, hot lead might be ventilating his vital parts. The drawling voice went on, 'Yu fired at me, an' missed.'
'I meant to miss.'
'That's yore tale; I ain't believin' it.'
'I could 'a' downed yu any time on the slope.'
'I might 'a' done the same any time in the last ten minutes, so we break even on that.' The speaker pondered a while, and then, 'I'm huntin' a job an' here's one handed to me. All I gotta do is wipe yu out, dump yore remainders in a hole, wait a coupla days till they've done lookin' for yu, an' offer myself to the Double K. Mebbe they'd make me foreman--they don't seem hard to please. Why, it's easy--like money from home.'
Though he had courage, Lagley became anxious. The cold eyes, imperturbable voice, and the twirling gun, the barrel of which seemed to wink in the sunlight each time it slanted down upon him, had a mesmeric effect. Easy? He knew it; there were scores of spots at hand where his body would remain--if prowling beasts permitted-- until it resolved again into the dust from which it sprang. He looked at his weapons, lying only a few feet distant, and back again at the winking warning; he hadn't a chance.
'See here, stranger, yu don't look the kind to kill a fella in cold blood *' he began, and as he saw the dawn of a satirical grin on the other's lips, added, 'I'm sayin' agin I didn't try to get yu--just wanted to ask a question or two, an' played it safe. Now, I'll make a dicker with yu: forget about this, show up at the Double K to-morrow, an' yu shall have that job yu were speakin' of. What yu say?'
'I'll take yu up on that--mebbe,' Sudden replied, after a brief consideration.
'Right,' Lagley said, with obvious relief. 'Let's be goin'.'
He had taken but one step when he noticed that the rotating gun had stopped, with the muzzle pointing towards him.
