"WHEN WE MEET AGAIN!"
It will be necessary to return to the day that Chuck Allegan and Obed
Pence met on the ridge beyond the Old Ivison Place, and rode together to
the hiding place of the Poison Oakers' moonshine still.
Obed Pence continued to lie prone in the mouth of the cave, while his
close-set eyes angrily watched the progress of Old Man Selden and his
son Bolar through the chaparral.
As the continued crawling of the coming pair brought them nearer to the
retreat Obed Pence withdrew his lank figure into the shadowy cave; and
he and his companion endeavoured to appear innocent and unconcerned.
Then when Old Man Selden and the boy reached the opening and stood
erect, Obed appeared at the mouth again and greeted them with a
matter-of-fact:
"Hello, there!"
"Why, howdy, Obed," returned Adam Selden. "Didn't know ye was here.
Who's with ye?"
"I reckon you see our horses down in Clinker Canyon," returned Obed in
trouble-hunting tones. "And you know every horse between Red Mountain
an' the Gap."
"Yea, me and Bolar thought we saw a couple o' animals through the trees.
But we hit the ground farther up the creekbed, and come in slonchways.
Thought maybe one o' the brutes was Chuck's."
Obed Pence snorted softly, but did not add more fuel to an argument
along this line.
"Me an' the kid was packin' a sack o' salt on a burro down toward the
river," Adam observed, approaching the cave, "an' thought we'd belly up
an' have a little smile. Cows need salt. Hello there, Chuck!"--as the
round, boyish face of Allegan shone like a small moon from the dark
interior.
"Hello, Old Man!" replied the youth. He was apprehensive over Pence's
glowering silence, and, to hide his feelings, quickly opened the spigot
over a glass and passed the water-white drink to his chief.
Adam Selden sat down with it, and Bolar came into the cave and was also
given a drink by Chuck.
"How early you gonta start the drive for the mountains this year, Old
Man?" asked the self-appointed host, nervously filling glasses for
himself and the glowering Pence, who stood with arms folded Napoleonlike
across his breast, scowlingly regarding the newcomers.
"Well, grass's holdin' out _muy bueno_," said Selden thoughtfully. "Late
rains done it. I don't think we'll have cause to move 'em any earlier
than common. The filaree down in the river bottom is--"
But here Napoleon broke his moody silence. "I got somethin' to talk
about outside o' grass," snapped Obed Pence.
A tense stillness ensued, during which Old
Man Selden deliberately drained his glass and passed it back to Chuck to
be refilled.
"Well, Obed," he drawled lazily, "got anything important to say, just
say her."
"Oh, I'll say her!" cried Pence, and tossed off his drink of burning
liquor by way of fortification.
"Ain't been settin' here by that bar'l a mite too long, have ye,
Obed?--if I ain't too bold in askin'," was Selden's remark, spoken in
the tone which turneth away wrath.
"No, I ain't been here too long," Pence told his captain. "And I'm glad
you've come, Old Man. I want to talk to you about this fella Drew, and
the way things 'a' been a-goin'."
"Shoot!" invited the old man's booming voice.
Obed came directly to the point. "Well, why ain't we runnin' Drew out?"
Old Man Selden balanced his glass on one peaked knee while he reached
into a pocket of his _chaparejos_ for a plug of tobacco. He was
deliberate as he replied:
"Well, Obed, I was waitin' a spell 'count of a little matter that's on
my mind just at present. I'd advise ye not to be worryin' about Drew.
I'll tend to him when it's the proper time."
"Yes, you will!" sniffed Pence sarcastically. "But, allowin' that you
will, I want my booze in the meantime."
"There's the bar'l," said Old Man Selden.
"That ain't gonta last forever!"
"Just so! But time she gets low, we'll be makin' more ag'in. Time Drew's
gone and we get water runnin' from Sulphur Spring ag'in."
"And I'm wantin' my profit from what we could sell," Pence added,
unmollified. "I got no money, and won't have none till killin' time,
'less the still's runnin'. 'Tain't worryin' you none. You got all you
want without makin' monkey rum. But it ain't like that with me. Why, we
was makin' five gallon a day--at twenty-five bucks a gallon! And now
nary a drop. I need the money."
"Well, Obed, they's money all about ye," the old man boomed. "And they's
things that can be turned into money layin' 'round loose everywhere."
"And there's a county jail, too!" snapped Pence.
"And also federal prisons," Adam added, nodding toward the still and the
crude fermentation vats.
"Rats! Pro'bition sneaks ain't got me scared! But bustin' into
somebody's store's a different matter. And while we're talkin' about it,
Old Man, I don't see as you're so keen for a little job like that as you
was some months ago."
"Gettin' old, Obed--gettin' old, as the fella says. Squirt another shot
into her, Chuck." He passed his glass again. "I'll leave all that to you
kids in future, I'm thinkin'."
"But take your share, o' course," sneered Pence.
"Oh, I reckon not, Obed--I reckon not. I got enough to die on--that's
all I need. Just putter 'round with a few critters for my remainin'
years, then turn up my toes peaceful-like. I'm gettin' old, Obed--just
so!"
There was another prolonged, strained silence. Pence emptied his glass
twice while it lasted, and his Dutch courage grew apace.
"Looky-here, Old Man," he said at last, "Le's get down to tacks: You're
double-crossin' us, an' we're dead onto it. For some reason you don't
wanta drive Drew outa Clinker Creek Canyon. It's got somethin' to do with
that fire dance. There's more in it for you if you leave Drew alone than
if you put a burr under his tail. That's all right so far's it goes. But
you're tryin' to hog it. You're squeezin' the rest o' the Poison Oakers
out--all but your four kids. Ed and Digger and Chuck here and Jey and
me's left out in the cold. That's what! And we don't like it, and ain't
gonta stand for it. If there's more profit in it to leave Drew alone,
leave 'im alone. But le's all get our share o' this big profit, like we
always did."
"Couple o' more shots and ye'll be weepin' about her, Pencie," dryly
observed old Adam.
"Never mind that! I c'n handle my booze. You come across."
"I've known ye about thirteen year, Obed," said Adam in tones
dangerously purring, "and I've never heard ye talk to me thataway
before. I wouldn't now, if I was you."
"And I've never seen you act like you're doin' in those thirteen years!"
cried Pence. "Before now there wasn't no need to bawl you out. But
you're turnin' crooked."
Adam rose and placed an enormous hand on Obed's shoulder.
"Just so! Just so!" he purred. "Now, you ramble down an' get in yer
saddle an' ride on home, Pencie. Ye've had enough liquor for today. An'
when ye're sober we'll all talk about her. Just so! That's best. Go on
now--yer blood's hot!"
Pence jerked his shoulder away and backed farther into the gloom of the
cave. Old Man Selden quickly moved so that his body was not silhouetted
against the light streaming in at the mouth.
"I don't want none o' yer dam' fatherly advice," growled Pence. "I just
want a square deal. If there's a reason why Drew oughta be left alone I
want to know it. And I want to know it now!"
"Just so! Are ye really mad, now, Pencie?"
"I am mad!"
"_And_ sober?"
"Yes, sober. Shoot her out!"
The eagle eyes of Old Man Selden were fixed intently on the face showing
from the gloom. Every muscle was tense, every faculty alert. His
beetling grey brows came down and hid his eyes from the younger man, but
those cold blue eyes saw everything.
"Bein's ye're sober, Obed," the old man drawled, "I'll be obliged to
tell ye that no Poison Oaker ner any other man ever talked to me like
you been doin' and got away with it. Just so! And, bein's ye're sober,
I'll say that my business is my own, an' I'll keep her to myself till I
get ready to tell her. Furthermore, I'm still runnin' the Poison Oakers,
and what I say goes now same as a couple months ago. I know what's good
for us boys better'n any o' the rest o' ye, and I'm doin' it."
"You're a dam' liar!" shouted Pence.
Old Man Selden's gun hand leaped to his hip. "Come a-shootin', kid!" he
bellowed.
He whipped out his Colt, shot from the hip. The roar of his big gun
filled the cave. Screened by the smoke of it, Old Man Selden sprang
nimbly to the deeper shadows.
There he crouched, his cavernous eyes peering out through the dense,
confined smoke like a lynx posing to spring upon a burrowing gopher.
Obed Pence had not been slow. He too had leaped the instant the old
man's hand dropped to his holster. He had ducked into deeper shadows
still, and had not been hit. Now he fired through the smoke wreaths in
the direction he supposed the old man had darted. A report from Adam's
gun roared on the heels of his own, and rocks and earth rattled down a
foot from his shoulder.
The cave extended to right and to left of the opening. Each of the
fighters was hidden by the darkness of his particular end, and now the
smoke of the three shots hung in a heavy blanket between them directly
opposite the door. Under cover of this Chuck and Bolar, sprawling flat,
had wriggled frantically out of the cave. Each from his own nook, the
belligerents leaned cautiously forward, guns ready, breath held in, and
tried to pierce the rack of smoke and the obscurity of the other's
hiding place.
It seemed to the younger men, gazing in, that the situation meant a
deadlock. Neither gunman could see the other, and, with no breath of air
stirring in the cave, the smoke lay between them like a solid wall.
Five minutes passed without a sound inside. Then Bolar drew nearer to
the cave and shouted in:
"What you gonta do? Neither o' you c'n see the other. You can't shoot.
What you gonta do?"
Complete silence answered him. Then he realized that neither his father
nor Obed Pence would dare to speak lest the sound of his voice reveal
his whereabouts and call forth a shot from the other end of the cave.
"You got to give it up for now!" he shouted in again. "I'll count
one-two-three; and when I say three, both o' ye throw yer guns in front
o' the mouth. I'll ask if ye'll do this. Both o' you answer at once.
Ready!... Will you?"
"Yes," came the smothered replies of both men in the cave.
"All right now. Get ready! One ... two ... _three_!"
At the word "three" two heavy-calibre Colts clattered on the dirt floor
before the entrance and lay not a foot apart, proving that there was a
recognized code of honour among the Poison Oakers. Bolar stooped and
entered, gathering them in his hands.
"All set," he announced. "Come out an' begin all over ag'in."
Old Man Selden was the first to come out. Pence quickly followed him.
Bolar had emptied both weapons of cartridges, and now he silently passed
each his gun.
"What'll it be, Pencie?" asked Old Man Selden, bending his fiery glance
on his dark, slim enemy. "Shall we draw when we meet ag'in, er forget it
entirely--or see who c'n load an' shoot quickest right here an' now?"
"It's up to you, Old Man."
"Forget it," advised Bolar. "For now, anyway."
"Shall we go our ways now, an' draw when we come together ag'in?" It was
Old Adam's question.
"Why can't you come across an' do the square thing now?" Pence growled.
"Then ever'thing's settled."
"Just so! But y're answerin' my question with another'n. Do we draw when
we meet ag'in?"
"You won't be square?"
"I'll tell ye nothin'. Ye called me a dam' liar, so you couldn't believe
it if I had anything to say to ye."
Pence shrugged indifferently and turned away. "When we meet ag'in," he
said lightly.
"Just so!" drawled Old Man Selden. "Just so!"