XV

Simon Turner had given Dave very definite instructions concerning his

embassy to Hudson. They were given in the great house that Simon

occupied, in the same room, lighted by the fire's glow, from which

instructions had gone out to the clan so many times before. "The first

thing this Bruce will do," Simon had said, "is to hunt up Hudson--the

one living man that witnessed that agreement between Ross and old

Folger. One reason is that he'll want to verify Linda's story. The next

is to persuade the old man to go down to the courts with him as his

witness. And what you have to do is line him up on our side first."

Dave had felt Simon's eyes upon him, so he didn't look straight up. "And

that's what the hundred is for?" he asked.

"Of course. Get the old man's word that he'll tell Bruce he never

witnessed any such agreement. Maybe fifty dollars will do it; the old

trapper is pretty hard up, I reckon. He'd make us a lot of trouble if

Bruce got him as a witness."

"You think--" Dave's eyes wandered about the room, "you think that's the

best way?"

"I wouldn't be tellin' you to do it if I didn't think so." Simon

laughed,--a sudden, grim syllable. "Dave, you're a blood-thirsty devil.

I see what you're thinking of--of a safer way to keep him from telling.

But you know the word I sent out. 'Go easy!' That's the wisest course to

follow at present. The valley people pay more attention to such things

than they used to; the fewer the killings, the wiser we will be. If

he'll keep quiet for the hundred let him have it in peace."

Dave hadn't forgotten. But his features were sharper and more ratlike

than ever when he came in sight of Hudson's camp, just after the fall of

darkness of the second day out. The trapper was cooking his simple

meal,--a blue grouse frying in his skillet, coffee boiling, and flapjack

batter ready for the moment the grouse was done. He was kneeling close

to the coals; the firelight cast a red glow over him, and the picture

started a train of rather pleasing conjectures in Dave's mind.

He halted in the shadows and stood a moment watching. After all he

wasn't greatly different from the wolf that watched by the deer trail or

the Killer in his ambush, less than a mile distant in the glen. The same

strange, dark passion that was over them both was over him also. One

could see it in the almost imperceptible drawing back of his dark lips

over his teeth. There was just a hint of it in the lurid eyes.

Dave's thought returned to the hundred dollars in his pocket,--a good

sum in the hills. A brass rifle cartridge, such as he could fire in the

thirty-thirty that he carried in the hollow of his arm, cost only about

six cents. The net gain would be--the figures flew quickly through his

mind--ninety-nine dollars and ninety-four cents; quite a good piece of

business for Dave. But the trouble was that Simon might find out.

It was not, he remembered, that Simon was adverse to this sort of

operation when necessary. Perhaps the straight-out sport of the thing

meant more to him than to Dave; he was a braver man and more primitive

in impulse. There were certain memory pictures in Dave's mind of this

younger, more powerful brother of his; and he smiled grimly when he

recalled them. They had been wild, strange scenes of long ago, usually

in the pale light of the moon, and he could recall Simon's face with

singular clearness. There had always been the same drawing back of the

lips, the same gusty breathing, the same strange little flakes of fire

in the savage eyes. He had always trembled all over too, but not from

fear; and Dave remembered especially well the little drama outside

Matthew Folger's cabin in the darkness. He was no stranger to the blood

madness, this brother of his, and the clan had high hopes for him even

in his growing days. And he had fulfilled those hopes. Never could the

fact be doubted! He could still make a fresh notch in his rifle stock

with the same rapture. But the word had gone out, for the present at

least, to "go easy." Such little games as occurred to Dave now--as he

watched the trapper in the firelight with one hundred dollars of the

clan's money in his own pocket--had been prohibited until further

notice.

The thing looked so simple that Dave squirmed all over with annoyance.

It hurt him to think that the hundred dollars that he carried was to be

passed over, without a wink of an eye, to this bearded trapper; and the

only return for it was to be a promise that Hudson would not testify in

Bruce's behalf. And a hundred dollars was real money! It was to be

thought of twice. On the other hand, it would be wholly impossible for

one that lies face half-buried in the pine needles beside a dead fire to

make any kind of testimony whatsoever. It would come to the same thing,

and the hundred dollars would still be in his pocket. Just a little

matter of a single glance down his rifle barrel at the figure in the

silhouette of the fire glow--and a half-ounce of pressure on the hair

trigger. Half jesting with himself, he dropped on one knee and raised

the weapon. The trapper did not guess his presence. The blood leaped in

Dave's veins.

It would be so easy; the drawing back of the hammer would be only the

work of a second; and an instant's peering through the sights was all

that would be needed further. His body trembled as if with passion, as

he started to draw back the hammer.

But he caught himself with a wrench. He had a single second of vivid

introspection; and what he saw filled his cunning eyes with wonder.

There would have been no holding back, once the rifle was cocked and he

saw the man through the sights. The blood madness would have been too

strong to resist. He felt as might one who, taking a few injections of

morphine on prescription, finds himself inadvertently with a loaded

needle in his hands. He knew a moment of remorse--so overwhelming that

it was almost terror--that the shedding of blood had become so easy to

him. He hadn't known how easy it had been to learn. He didn't know that

a vice is nothing but a lust that has been given free play so many times

that the will can no longer restrain it.

But the sight of Hudson's form, sitting down now to his meal, dispelled

his remorse quickly. After all, his own course would have been the

simplest way to handle the matter. There would be no danger that Hudson

would double-cross them then. But he realized that Simon had spoken true

when he said that the old days were gone, that the arm of the law

reached farther than formerly, and it might even stretch to this far

place. He remembered Simon's instructions. "The quieter we can do these

things, the better," the clan leader had said. "If we can get through to

October thirtieth with no killings, the safer it is for us. We don't

know how the tenderfeet in the valley are going to act--there isn't the

same feeling about blood-feuds that there used to be. Go easy, Dave.

Sound this Hudson out. If he'll keep still for a hundred, let him have

it in peace."

Dave slipped his rifle into the hollow of his arm and continued on down

the trail. He didn't try to stalk. In a moment Hudson heard his step and

looked up. They met in a circle of firelight.

It is not the mountain way to fraternize quickly, nor are the mountain

men quick to show astonishment. Hudson had not seen another human being

since his last visit to the settlements. Yet his voice indicated no

surprise at this visitation.

"Howdy," he grunted.

"Howdy," Dave replied. "How about grub?"

"Help yourself. Supper just ready."

Dave helped himself to the food of the man that, a moment before, he

would have slain; and in the light of the high fire that followed the

meal, he got down to the real business of the visit.

Dave knew that a fairly straight course was best. It was general

knowledge through the hills that the Turners had gouged the Rosses of

their lands and it was absurd to think that Hudson did not realize the

true state of affairs. "I suppose you've forgotten that little deed you

witnessed between old Mat Folger and Ross--twenty years ago," Dave began

easily, his pipe between his teeth.

Hudson turned with a cunning glitter in his eyes. Dave saw it and grew

bolder. "Who wants me to forget it?" Hudson demanded.

"I ain't said that anybody wants you to," Dave responded. "I asked if

you had."

Hudson was still a moment, stroking absently his beard. "If you want to

know," he said, "I ain't forgotten. But there wasn't just a deed. There

was an agreement too."

Dave nodded. Hudson's eyes traveled to his rifle,--for the simple reason

that he wanted to know just how many jumps he would be obliged to make

to reach it in case of emergencies. Such things are good to know in

meetings like this.

"I know all about that agreement," Dave confessed.

"You do, eh? So do I. I ain't likely to forget."

Dave studied him closely. "What good is it going to do you to remember?"

he demanded.

"I ain't saying that it's going to do me any good. At present I ain't

got nothing against the Turners. They've always been all right to me.

What's between them and the Rosses is past and done--although I know

just in what way Folger held that land and no transfer from him to you

was legal. But that's all part of the past. As long as the Turners

continue to be my friends I don't see why anything should be said about

it."

Dave did not misunderstand him. He didn't in the least assume that these

friendly words meant that he could go back to the ranches with the

hundred dollars still in his pocket. It meant merely that Hudson was

open to reason and it wouldn't have to be a shooting affair.

Dave speculated. It was wholly plain that the old man had not yet heard

of Bruce's return. There was no need to mention him. "We're glad you are

our friend," Dave went on. "But we don't expect no one to stay friends

with us unless they benefit to some small extent by it. How many furs do

you hope to take this year?"

"Not enough to pay to pack out. Maybe two hundred dollars in bounties

before New Year--coyotes and wolves. Maybe a little better in the three

months following in furs."

"Then maybe fifty or seventy-five dollars, without bothering to set the

traps, wouldn't come in so bad."

"It wouldn't come in bad, but it doesn't buy much these days. A hundred

would do better."

"A hundred it is," Dave told him with finality.

The eyes above the dark beard shone in the firelight. "I'd forget I had

a mother for a hundred dollars," he said. He watched, greedily, as

Dave's gaunt hand went into his pocket. "I'm gettin' old, Dave. Every

dollar is harder for me to get. The wolves are gettin' wiser, the mink

are fewer. There ain't much that I wouldn't do for a hundred dollars

now. You know how it is."

Yes, Dave knew. The money changed hands. The fire burned down. They sat

a long time, deep in their own thoughts.

"All we ask," Dave said, "is that you don't take sides against us."

"I'll remember. Of course you want me, in case I'm ever subpoenaed, to

recall signing the deed itself."

"Yes, we'd want you to testify to that."

"Of course. If there hadn't been any kind of a deed, Folger couldn't

have deeded the property to you. But how would it be, if any one asks me

about it, to swear that there _never was_ no secret agreement, but a

clear transfer; and to make it sound reasonable for me to say--to say

that Ross was forced to deed the land to Folger because he'd had

goings-on with Folger's wife, and Folger was about to kill him?"

The only response, at first, was the slightest, almost imperceptible

narrowing of Dave's eyes. He had considerable native cunning, but such

an idea as this had never occurred to him. But he was crafty enough to

see its tremendous possibilities at once. All that either Simon or

himself had hoped for was that the old man would not testify in Bruce's

behalf. But he saw that such a story, coming from the apparently honest

old trapper, might have a profound effect upon Bruce. Dave understood

human nature well enough to know that he would probably lose faith in

the entire enterprise. To Bruce it had been nothing but an old woman's

story, after all; it was wholly possible that he would relinquish all

effort to return the lands to Linda Ross. Men always can believe

stranger things of sex than any other thing; Bruce would in all

probability find Hudson's story much more logical than the one Linda had

told him under the pine. It was worth one hundred dollars, after all.

"I'll bet you could make him swallow it, hook, bait, and sinker," Dave

responded at last, flattering. They chuckled together in the darkness.

Then they turned to the blankets.

"I'll show you another trail out to-morrow," Hudson told him. "It comes

into the glen that you passed to-night--the canyon that the Killer has

been using lately for a hunting ground."