Oldham's cold rage carried him to the railroad and into his berth. Then,
with the regular beat and throb of the carwheels over the sleepers,
other considerations forced themselves upon him. Consequences demanded
recognition.
The land agent had not for many years permitted himself to act on
impulse. Therefore this one lapse from habit alarmed him vaguely by the
mere fact that it was a lapse from habit. He distrusted himself in an
unaccustomed environment of the emotions.
But superinduced on this formless uneasiness were graver considerations.
He could not but admit to himself that he had by his expressed order
placed himself to some extent in Saleratus Bill's power. He did not for
a moment doubt the gun-man's loyal intentions. As long as things went
well he would do his best by his employer--if merely to gain the reward
promised him only on fulfillment of his task. But it is not easy to
commit a murder undetected. And if detected, Oldham had no illusions as
to Saleratus Bill. The gun-man, would promptly shelter himself behind
his principal.
As the night went on, and Oldham found himself unable to sleep in the
terrible heat, the situation visualized itself. Step by step he followed
out the sequence of events as they might be, filling in the minutest
details of discovery, exposure and ruin. Gradually, in the tipped
balance of after midnight, events as they might be became events as they
surely would be. Oldham began to see that he had made a fearful mistake.
No compunction entered his mind that he had condemned a man to death;
but a cold fear gripped him lest his share should be discovered, and he
should be called upon to face the consequences. Oldham enjoyed and could
play only the game that was safe so far as physical and personal
retribution went.
So deeply did the guilty panic invade his soul that after a time he
arose and dressed. The sleepy porter was just turning out from the
smoking compartment.
"What's this next station?" Oldham demanded.
"Mo-harvey," blinked the porter.
"I get off there," stated Oldham briefly.
The porter stared at him.
"I done thought you went 'way through," he confessed. "I'se scairt I
done forgot you."
"All right," said Oldham curtly, and handing him a tip. "Never mind that
confounded brush; get my suit case."
Ten seconds later he stood on the platform of the little station in the
desert while the tail lights of the train diminished slowly into the
distance.
The desert lay all about him like a calmed sea on which were dim
half-lights of sage brush or alkali flats. On a distant horizon slept
black mountain ranges, stretched low under a brilliant sky that arched
triumphant. In it the stars flamed steadily like candles, after the
strange desert fashion. Although by day the heat would have scorched the
boards on which he stood, now Oldham shivered in the searching of the
cool insistent night wind that breathed across the great spaces.
He turned to the lighted windows of the little station where a tousled
operator sat at a telegraph key. A couch in the corner had been recently
deserted. The fact that the operator was still awake and on duty argued
well for another train soon. Oldham proffered his question.
"Los Angeles express due now. Half-hour late," replied the operator
wearily, without looking up.
Oldham caught the train, which landed him in White Oaks about noon.
There he hired a team, and drove the sixty miles to Sycamore Flats by
eleven o'clock that night. The fear was growing in his heart, and he had
to lay on himself a strong retaining hand to keep from lashing his
horses beyond their endurance and strength. Sycamore Flats was, of
course, long since abed. In spite of his wild impatience Oldham retained
enough sense to know that it would not do to awaken any one for the sole
purpose of inquiring as to the whereabouts of Saleratus Bill. That would
too obviously connect him with the gun-man. Therefore he stabled his
horses, roused one of the girls at Auntie Belle's, and retired to the
little box room assigned him.
There nature asserted herself. The man had not slept for two nights; he
had travelled many miles on horseback, by train, and by buckboard; he
had experienced the most exhausting of emotions and experiences. He fell
asleep, and he did not awaken until after sun-up.
Promptly he began his inquiries. Saleratus Bill had passed through the
night before; he had ridden up the mill road.
Oldham ate his breakfast, saddled one of the team horses, and followed.
Ordinarily, he was little of a woodsman, but his anxiety sharpened his
wits and his eyes, so that a quarter mile from the summit he noticed
where a shod horse had turned off from the road. After a moment's
hesitation he turned his own animal to follow the trail. The horse
tracks were evidently fresh, and Oldham surmised that it was hardly
probable two horsemen had as yet that morning travelled the mill road.
While he debated, young Elliott swung down the dusty way headed toward
the village. He greeted Oldham.
"Is Orde back at headquarters yet?" the latter asked, on impulse.
"Yes, he got back day before yesterday," the young ranger replied; "but
you won't find him there this morning. He walked over to the mill to
see Welton. You'd probably get him there."
Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next corner, then
spurred his horse up the mountain. The significance of the detour was
now no longer in doubt, for he remembered well how and where the wagon
trail from headquarters joined the mill road. Saleratus Bill would leave
his horse out of sight on the hog-back ridge, sneak forward afoot, and
ambush his man at the forks of the road.
And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Oldham saw as
assured facts several further possibilities. Saleratus Bill was known to
have ridden up the mill road; he, Oldham, was known to have been
inquiring after both Saleratus Bill and Orde--in short, out of wild
improbabilities, which to his ordinary calm judgment would have meant
nothing at all, he now wove a tissue of danger. He wished he had thought
to ask Elliott how long ago Orde had started out from headquarters.
The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fearful grade, for it
had to surmount as best it could the ledge at the crest of the plateau.
Horsemen here were accustomed to pause every fifty feet or so to allow
their mounts a gulp of air. Oldham plied lash and spur. He came out from
his frenzy of panic to find his horse, completely blown, lying down
under him. The animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of
yesterday, was quite done. After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham
realized this fact. He pursued his journey afoot.
Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident, Oldham
trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow. As he neared the
crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no living creature
moved on the headquarters fork of the road. As a matter of fact, at that
precise instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him,
standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves. A single
small alder concealed them from the other road. If they had not
happened to have stopped, two seconds would have brought them into sight
in either direction. Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and
himself came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.
As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man crouching and
gliding cautiously forward through the low concealment of the snowbush.
His movements were quick, his head was craned forward, every muscle was
taut, his eyes fixed on some object invisible to Oldham with an
intensity that evidently excluded from the field of his vision
everything but that toward which his lithe and snake-like advance was
bringing him. In his hand he carried the worn and shining Colts 45 that
was always his inseparable companion.
Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment somewhere above
him on the hill a woman screamed. The cry was instantly followed by two
revolver shots.