The colonel allowed his glance to narrow, and he could do this the more
safely because at this moment Donnegan's eyes were wandering into the
distance. In that unguarded second Donnegan was defenseless and the
colonel read something that set him beaming.
"She loves him, of course," he said, "and he is breaking her heart with
his selfishness."
"He is breaking her heart?" echoed Donnegan.
The colonel raised his hand and stroked his enormous chin. Decidedly he
believed that things were getting on very well.
"This is the position," he declared. "Jack Landis was threatened by the
wretch Lester, and shot him down. But Lester was not single-handed. He
belongs to a wild crew, led by a mysterious fellow of whom no one knows
very much, a deadly fighter, it is said, and a keen organizer and
handler of men. Red-haired, wild, smooth. A bundle of contradictions.
They call him Lord Nick because he has the pride of a nobleman and the
cunning of the devil. He has gathered a few chosen spirits and cool
fighters--the Pedlar, Joe Rix, Harry Masters--all celebrated names in
the cattle country.
"They worship Lord Nick partly because he is a genius of crime and
partly because he understands how to guide them so that they may rob and
even kill with impunity. His peculiarity is his ability to keep within
the bounds of the law. If he commits a robbery he always first
establishes marvelous alibis and throws the blame toward someone else;
if it is the case of a killing, it is always the other man who is the
aggressor. He has been before a jury half a dozen times, but the devil
knows the law and pleads his own case with a tongue that twists the
hearts out of the stupid jurors. You see? No common man. And this is the
leader of the group of which Lester is one of the most debased members.
He had no sooner been shot than Lord Nick himself appeared. He had his
followers with him. He saw Jack Landis, threatened him with death, and
made Jack swear that he would hand over half of the profits of the mines
to the gang--of which, I suppose, Lester gets his due proportion. At the
same time, Lord Nick attempted to persuade Jack that I, his adopted
father, you might say, was really in the wrong, and that I had stolen
the claims from this wretched Lester!"
He waved this disgusting accusation into a mist and laughed with hateful
softness.
"The result is this: Jack Landis draws a vast revenue from the mines.
Half of it he turns over to Lord Nick, and Lord Nick in return gives him
absolute freedom and backing in the camp, where he is, and probably will
continue the dominant factor. As for the other half, Landis spends it on
this woman with whom he has become infatuated. And not a penny comes
through to me!"
Colonel Macon leaned back in his chair and his eyes became fixed upon a
great distance. He smiled, and the blood turned cold in the veins of
Donnegan.
"Of course this adventuress, this Nelly Lebrun, plays hand in glove with
Lord Nick and his troupe; unquestionably she shares her spoils, so that
nine-tenths of the revenue from the mines is really flowing back through
the hands of Lord Nick and Jack Landis has become a silly figurehead. He
struts about the streets of The Corner as a great mine owner, and with
the power of Lord Nick behind him, not one of the people of the gambling
houses and dance halls dares cross him. So that Jack has come to
consider himself a great man. Is it clear?"
Donnegan had not yet drawn his gaze entirely back from the distance.
"This is the possible solution," went on the colonel. "Jack Landis must
be drawn away from the influence of this Nelly Lebrun. He must be
brought back to us and shown his folly both as regards the adventuress
and Lord Nick; for so long as Nelly has a hold on him, just so long
Lord Nick will have his hand in Jack's pocket. You see how beautifully
their plans and their work dovetail? How, therefore, am I to draw him
from Nelly? There is only one way: send my daughter to the camp--send
Lou to The Corner and let one glimpse of her beauty turn the shabby
prettiness of this woman to a shadow! Lou is my last hope!"
At this Donnegan wakened. His sneer was not a pleasant thing to see.
"Send her to a new mining camp. Colonel Macon, you have the gambling
spirit; you are willing to take great chances!"
"So! So!" murmured the colonel, a little taken aback. "But I should
never send her except with an adequate protector."
"An adequate protector even against these celebrated gunmen who run the
camp as you have already admitted?"
"An adequate protector--you are the man!"
Donnegan shivered.
"I? I take your daughter to the camp and play her against Nelly Lebrun
to win back Jack Landis? Is that the scheme?"
"It is."
"Ah," murmured Donnegan. And he got up and began to walk the room,
white-faced; the colonel watched him in a silent agony of anxiety.
"She truly loves this Landis?" asked Donnegan, swallowing.
"A love that has grown out of their long intimacy together since they
were children."
"Bah! Calf love! Let the fellow go and she will forget him. Hearts are
not broken in these days by disappointments in love affairs."
The colonel writhed in his chair.
"But Lou--you do not know her heart!" he suggested. "If you looked
closely at her you would have seen that she is pale. She does not
suspect the truth, but I think she is wasting away because Jack hasn't
written for weeks."
He saw Donnegan wince under the whip.
"It is true," murmured the wanderer. "She is not like others, heaven
knows!" He turned. "And what if I fail to bring over Jack Landis with
the sight of Lou?"
The colonel relaxed; the great crisis was past and Donnegan would
undertake the journey.
"In that case, my dear lad, there is an expedient so simple that you
astonish me by not perceiving it. If there is no way to wean Landis away
from the woman, then get him alone and shoot him through the heart. In
that way you remove from the life of Lou a man unworthy of her and you
also make the mines come to the heir of Jack Landis--namely, myself. And
in the latter case, Mr. Donnegan, be sure--oh, be sure that I should not
forget who brought the mines into my hands!"
10
Fifty miles over any sort of going is a stiff march. Fifty miles uphill
and down and mostly over districts where there was only a rough cow path
in lieu of a road made a prodigious day's work; and certainly it was an
almost incredible feat for one who professed to hate work with a
consuming passion and who had looked upon an eight-mile jaunt the night
before as an insuperable burden. Yet such was the distance which
Donnegan had covered, and now he drove the pack mule out on the shoulder
of the hill in full view of The Corner with the triangle of the Young
Muddy and Christobel Rivers embracing the little town. Even the gaunt,
leggy mule was tired to the dropping point, and the tough buckskin which
trailed up behind went with downward head. When Louise Macon turned to
him, he had reached the point where he swung his head around first and
then grudgingly followed the movement with his body. The girl was tired,
also, in spite of the fact that she had covered every inch of the
distance in the saddle. There was that violet shade of weariness under
her eyes and her shoulders slumped forward. Only Donnegan, the hater of
labor, was fresh.
They had started in the first dusk of the coming day; it was now the
yellow time of the slant afternoon sunlight; between these two points
there had been a body of steady plodding. The girl had looked askance at
that gaunt form of Donnegan's when they began; but before three hours,
seeing that the spring never left his step nor the swinging rhythm his
stride, she began to wonder. This afternoon, nothing he did could have
surprised her. From the moment he entered the house the night before he
had been a mystery. Till her death day she would not forget the fire
with which he had stared up at her from the foot of the stairs. But when
he came out of her father's room--not cowed and whipped as most men left
it--he had looked at her with a veiled glance, and since that moment
there had always been a mist of indifference over his eyes when he
looked at her.
In the beginning of that day's march all she knew was that her father
trusted her to this stranger, Donnegan, to take her to The Corner, where
he was to find Jack Landis and bring Jack back to his old allegiance and
find what he was doing with his time and his money. It was a quite
natural proceeding, for Jack was a wild sort, and he was probably
gambling away all the gold that was dug in his mines. It was perfectly
natural throughout, except that she should have been trusted so entirely
to a stranger. That was a remarkable thing, but, then, her father was a
remarkable man, and it was not the first time that his actions had been
inscrutable, whether concerning her or the affairs of other people. She
had heard men come into their house cursing Colonel Macon with death in
their faces; she had seen them sneak out after a soft-voiced interview
and never appear again. In her eyes, her father was invincible,
all-powerful. When she thought of superlatives, she thought of him. Her
conception of mystery was the smile of the colonel, and her conception
of tenderness was bounded by the gentle voice of the same man.
Therefore, it was entirely sufficient to her that the colonel had said:
"Go, and trust everything to Donnegan. He has the power to command you
and you must obey--until Jack comes back to you."
That was odd, for, as far as she knew, Jack had never left her. But she
had early discarded any will to question her father. Curiosity was a
thing which the fat man hated above all else.
Therefore, it was really not strange to her that throughout the journey
her guide did not speak half a dozen words to her. Once or twice when
she attempted to open the conversation he had replied with crushing
monosyllables, and there was an end. For the rest, he was always
swinging down the trail ahead of her at a steady, unchanging, rapid
stride. Uphill and down it never varied. And so they came out upon the
shoulder of the hill and saw the storm center of The Corner. They were
in the hills behind the town; two miles would bring them into it. And
now Donnegan came back to her from the mule. He took off his hat and
shook the dust away; he brushed a hand across his face. He was still
unshaven. The red stubble made him hideous, and the dust and
perspiration covered his face as with a mask. Only his eyes were rimmed
with white skin.
"You'd better get off the horse, here," said Donnegan.
He held her stirrup, and she obeyed without a word.
"Sit down."
She sat down on the flat-topped boulder which he designated, and,
looking up, observed the first sign of emotion in his face. He was
frowning, and his face was drawn a little.
"You are tired," he stated.
"A little."
"You are tired," said the wanderer in a tone that implied dislike of any
denial. Therefore she made no answer. "I'm going down into the town to
look things over. I don't want to parade you through the streets until I
know where Landis is to be found and how he'll receive you. The Corner
is a wild town; you understand?"
"Yes," she said blankly, and noted nervously that the reply did not
please him. He actually scowled at her.
"You'll be all right here. I'll leave the pack mule with you; if
anything should happen--but nothing is going to happen, I'll be back in
an hour or so. There's a pool of water. You can get a cold drink there
and wash up if you want to while I'm gone. But don't go to sleep!"
"Why not?"
"A place like this is sure to have a lot of stragglers hunting around
it. Bad characters. You understand?"
She could not understand why he should make a mystery of it; but then,
he was almost as strange as her father. His careful English and his
ragged clothes were typical of him inside and out.
"You have a gun there in your holster. Can you use it?"
"Yes."
"Try it."
It was a thirty-two, a woman's light weapon. She took it out and
balanced it in her hand.
"The blue rock down the hillside. Let me see you chip it."
Her hand went up, and without pausing to sight along the barrel, she
fired; fire flew from the rock, and there appeared a white, small scar.
Donnegan sighed with relief.
"If you squeezed the butt rather than pulled the trigger," he commented,
"you would have made a bull's-eye that time. Now, I don't mean that in
any likelihood you'll have to defend yourself. I simply want you to be
aware that there's plenty of trouble around The Corner."
"Yes," said the girl.
"You're not afraid?"
"Oh, no."
Donnegan settled his hat a little more firmly upon his head. He had been
on the verge of attributing her gentleness to a blank, stupid mind; he
began to realize that there was metal under the surface. He felt that
some of the qualities of the father were echoed faintly, and at a
distance, in the child. In a way, she made him think of an unawakened
creature. When she was roused, if the time ever came, it might be that
her eye could become a thing alternately of fire and ice, and her voice
might carry with a ring.
"This business has to be gotten through quickly," he went on. "One
meeting with Jack Landis will be enough."
She wondered why he set his jaw when he said this, but he was wondering
how deeply the colonel's ward had fallen into the clutches of Nelly
Lebrun. If that first meeting did not bring Landis to his senses, what
followed? One of two things. Either the girl must stay on in The Corner
and try her hand with her fiancé again, or else the final brutal
suggestion of the colonel must be followed; he must kill Landis. It was
a cold-blooded suggestion, but Donnegan was a cold-blooded man. As he
looked at the girl, where she sat on the boulder, he knew definitely,
first and last, that he loved her, and that he would never again love
any other woman. Every instinct drew him toward the necessity of
destroying Landis. There was his stumbling block. But what if she truly
loved Landis?
He would have to wait in order to find that out. And as he stood there
with the sun shining on the red stubble on his face he made a resolution
the more profound because it was formed in silence: if she truly loved
Landis he would serve her hand and foot until she had her will.