he'll never get a chance at Steele's back. The man don't live on this border who's quick and smart enough to kill Steele.”
“I'd like to know why?” demanded Wright sullenly.
“You ought to know. You've seen the Ranger pull a gun.”
“Who told you?” queried Wright, his face working.
“Oh, I guessed it, if that'll do you.”
“If Jack doesn't kill this damned Ranger I will,” replied Wright, pounding the table.
Sampson laughed contemptuously. “George, don't make so much noise. And don't be a fool. You've been on the border for ten years. You've packed a gun and you've used it. You've been with Blome and Snecker when they killed their men. You've been present at many fights. But you never saw a man like Steele. You haven't got sense enough to see him right if you had a chance. Neither has Blome. The only way to get rid of Steele is for the gang to draw on him, all at once. And even then he's going to drop some of them.”
“Sampson, you say that like a man who wouldn't care much if Steele did drop some of them,” declared Wright, and now he was sarcastic.
“To tell you the truth I wouldn't,” returned the other bluntly. “I'm pretty sick of this mess.”
Wright cursed in amaze. His emotions were out of all proportion to his intelligence. He was not at all quick- witted. I had never seen a vainer or more arrogant man. “Sampson, I don't like your talk,” he said.
“If you don't like the way I talk you know what you can do,” replied Sampson quickly. He stood up then, cool and quiet, with flash of eyes and set of lips that told me he was dangerous.
“Well, after all, that's neither here nor there,” went on Wright, unconsciously cowed by the other. “The thing is, do I get the girl?”
“Not by any means, except her consent.”
“You'll not make her marry me?”
“No. No,” replied Sampson, his voice still cold, low-pitched.
“All right. Then I'll make her.”
Evidently Sampson understood the man before him so well that he wasted no more words. I knew what Wright never dreamed of, and that was that Sampson had a gun somewhere within reach and meant to use it.
Then heavy footsteps sounded outside, tramping upon the porch. I might have been mistaken, but I believed those footsteps saved Wright's life.
“There they are,” said Wright, and he opened the door. Five masked men entered. About two of them I could not recognize anything familiar. I thought one had old Snecker's burly shoulders and another Bo Snecker's stripling shape. I did recognize Blome in spite of his mask, because his fair skin and hair, his garb and air of distinction made plain his identity. They all wore coats, hiding any weapons. The big man with burly shoulders shook hands with Sampson and the others stood back.
The atmosphere of that room had changed. Wright might have been a nonentity for all he counted. Sampson was another man—a stranger to me. If he had entertained a hope of freeing himself from his band, of getting away to a safer country, he abandoned it at the very sight of these men. There was power here and he was bound.
The big man spoke in low, hoarse whispers, and at this all the others gathered round him, close to the table. There were evidently some signs of membership not plain to me. Then all the heads were bent over the table. Low voices spoke, queried, answered, argued. By straining my ears I caught a word here and there. They were planning. I did not attempt to get at the meaning of the few words and phrases I distinguished, but held them in mind so to piece all together afterward. Before the plotters finished conferring I had an involuntary flashed knowledge of much and my whirling, excited mind made reception difficult.
When these rustlers finished whispering I was in a cold sweat. Steele was to be killed as soon as possible by Blome, or by the gang going to Steele's house at night. Morton had been seen with the Ranger. He was to meet the same fate as Hoden, dealt by Bo Snecker, who evidently worked in the dark like a ferret. Any other person known to be communing with Steele, or interested in him, or suspected of either, was to be silenced. Then the town was to suffer a short deadly spell of violence, directed anywhere, for the purpose of intimidating those people who had begun to be restless under the influence of the Ranger. After that, big herds of stock were to be rustled off the ranches to the north and driven to El Paso.
Then the big man, who evidently was the leader of the present convention, got up to depart. He went as swiftly as he had come, and was followed by the slender fellow. As far as it was possible for me to be sure, I identified these two as Snecker and his son. The others, however, remained. Blome removed his mask, which action was duplicated by the two rustlers who had stayed with him. They were both young, bronzed, hard of countenance, not unlike cowboys. Evidently this was now a social call on Sampson. He set out cigars and liquors for his guests, and a general conversation ensued, differing little from what might have been indulged in by neighborly ranchers. There was not a word spoken that would have caused suspicion.
Blome was genial, gay, and he talked the most. Wright alone seemed uncommunicative and unsociable. He smoked fiercely and drank continually. All at once he straightened up as if listening. “What's that?” he called suddenly.
The talking and laughter ceased. My own strained ears were pervaded by a slight rustling sound.
“Must be a rat,” replied Sampson in relief. Strange how any sudden or unknown thing weighed upon him.
The rustling became a rattle.
“Sounds like a rattlesnake to me,” said Blome.
Sampson got up from the table and peered round the room. Just at that instant I felt an almost inappreciable movement of the adobe wall which supported me. I could scarcely credit my senses. But the rattle inside Sampson's room was mingling with little dull thuds of falling dirt. The adobe wall, merely dried mud was crumbling. I distinctly felt a tremor pass through it. Then the blood gushed with sickening coldness back to my heart and seemingly clogged it.
