A TRY OUT
Sleepy Cat is not so large a place that one would ordinarily have much
trouble in finding a man in it if one searched well. But Duke Morgan
drove into town next morning and had to stay for three days waiting
for a chance to meet de Spain. Duke was not a man to talk much when he
had anything of moment to put through, and he had left home
determined, before he came back, to finish for good with his enemy.
De Spain himself had been putting off for weeks every business that
would bear putting off, and had been forced at length to run down to
Medicine Bend to buy horses. Nan, after her uncle left home--justly
apprehensive of his intentions--made frantic efforts to get word to de
Spain of what was impending. She could not telegraph--a publicity that
she dreaded would have followed at once. De Spain had expected to be
back in two days. Such a letter as she could have sent would not reach
him at Medicine Bend.
As it was, a distressing amount of talk did attend Duke's efforts to
get track of de Spain. Sleepy Cat had but one interpretation for his
inquiries--and a fight, if one occurred between these men, it was
conceded would be historic in the annals of the town. Its anticipation
was food for all of the rumors of three days of suspense. For the town
they were three days of thrilling expectation; for Nan, isolated,
without a confidant, not knowing what to do or which way to turn, they
were the three bitterest days of anxiety she had ever known.
Desperate with suspense at the close of the second day--wild for a
scrap of news, yet dreading one--she saddled her pony and rode alone
into Sleepy Cat after nightfall to meet the train on which de Spain
had told her he would return from the east. She rode straight to the
hospital, instead of going to the livery-barn, and leaving her horse,
got supper and walked by way of unfrequented streets down-town to the
station to wait for the train.
Never had she felt so miserable, so helpless, so forsaken, so alone.
With the thought of her nearest relative, the man who had been a
father to her and provided a home for her as long as she could
remember, seeking to kill him whose devotion had given her all the
happiness she had ever known, and whose safety meant her only pledge
of happiness for the future--her heart sank.
When the big train drew slowly, almost noiselessly, in, Nan took her
place where no incoming passenger could escape her gaze and waited for
de Spain. Scanning eagerly the figures of the men that walked up the
long platform and approached the station exit, the fear that she
should not see him battled with the hope that he would still appear.
But when all the arrivals had been accounted for, he had not come.
She turned, heavy-hearted, to walk back uptown, trying to think
of whom she might seek some information concerning de Spain's
whereabouts, when her eye fell on a man standing not ten feet away
at the door of the baggage-room. He was alone and seemed to be
watching the changing of the engines, but Nan thought she knew
him by sight. The rather long, straight, black hair under the
broad-brimmed Stetson hat marked the man known and hated in the Gap
as "the Indian." Here, she said to herself, was a chance. De Spain,
she recalled, spoke of no one oftener than this man. He seemed
wholly disengaged.
Repressing her nervous timidity, Nan walked over to him. "Aren't you
Mr. Scott?" she asked abruptly.
Scott, turning to her, touched his hat as if quite unaware until that
moment of her existence. "Did Mr. de Spain get off this train?" she
asked, as Scott acknowledged his identity.
"I didn't see him. I guess he didn't come to-night." Nan noticed the
impassive manner of his speaking and the low, even tones. "I was kind
of looking for him myself."
"Is there another train to-night he could come on?"
"I don't think he will be back now before to-morrow night."
Nan, much disappointed, looked up the line and down. "I rode in this
afternoon from Music Mountain especially to see him." Scott, without
commenting, smiled with understanding and encouragement, and Nan was
so filled with anxiety that she welcomed a chance to talk to somebody.
"I've often heard him speak of you," she ventured, searching the dark
eyes, and watching the open, kindly smile characteristic of the man.
Scott put his right hand out at his side. "I've ridden with that boy
since he was so high."
"I know he thinks everything of you."
"I think a lot of him."
"You don't know me?" she said tentatively.
His answer concealed all that was necessary. "Not to speak to, no."
"I am Nan Morgan."
"I know your name pretty well," he explained; nothing seemed to
disturb his smile.
"And I came in--because I was worried over something and wanted to see
Mr. de Spain."
"He is buying horses north of Medicine Bend. The rain-storm yesterday
likely kept him back some. I don't think you need worry much over
anything though."
"I don't mean I am worrying about Mr. de Spain at Medicine Bend,"
disclaimed Nan with a trace of embarrassment.
"I know what you mean," smiled Bob Scott. She regarded him questioningly.
He returned her gaze reassuringly as if he was confident of his ground.
"Did your pony come along all right after you left the foot-hills this
afternoon?"
Nan opened her eyes. "How did you know I came through the foot-hills?"
"I was over that way to-day." Something in the continuous smile
enlightened her more than the word. "I noticed your pony went lame.
You stopped to look at his foot."
"You were behind me," exclaimed Nan.
"I didn't see you," he countered prudently.
She seemed to fathom something from the expression of his face. "You
couldn't have known I was coming in," she said quickly.
"No." He paused. Her eyes seemed to invite a further confidence. "But
after you started it would be a pity if any harm came to you on the
road."
"You knew Uncle Duke was in town?" Scott nodded. "Do you know why I
came?"
"I made a guess at it. I don't think you need worry over anything."
"Has Uncle Duke been talking?"
"Your Uncle Duke doesn't talk much, you know. But he had to ask
questions."
"Did you follow me down from the hospital to-night?"
"I was coming from my house after supper. I only kept close enough to
you to be handy."
"Oh, I understand. And you are very kind. I don't know what to do
now."
"Go back to the hospital for the night. I will send Henry de Spain up
there just as soon as he comes to town."
"Suppose Uncle Duke sees him first."
"I'll see that he doesn't see him first."
"Where is Uncle Duke to-night, do you know?"
"Lefever says he is up-street somewhere."
"That means Tenison's," said Nan. "You need not be afraid to speak
plainly, as I must. Uncle Duke is very angry--I am deathly afraid of
their meeting."
Even de Spain himself, when he came back the next night, seemed
hardly able to reassure her. Nan, who had stayed at the hospital,
awaited him there, whither Scott had directed him, with her burden of
anxiety still upon her. When she had told all her story, de Spain
laughed at her fears. "I'll bring that man around, Nan, don't worry.
Don't believe we shall ever fight. I may not be able to bring him
around to-morrow, or next week, but I'll do it. It takes two to
quarrel, you know."
"But you don't know how unreasoning Uncle Duke is when he is angry,"
said Nan mournfully. "He won't listen to _any_body. He always would
listen to me until now. Now, he says, I have gone back on him, and he
doesn't care what happens. Think, Henry, where it would put me if
either of you should kill the other. Henry, I've been thinking it all
over for three days now. I see what must come. It will break both our
hearts, I know, but they will be broken anyway. There is no way out,
Henry--none."
"Nan, what do you mean?"
"You must give me up."
They were sitting in the hospital garden, he at her side on the bench
that he called their bench. It was here he had made his unrebuked
avowal--here, he had afterward told her, that he began to live. "Give
you up," he echoed with gentleness. "How could I do that? You're like
the morning for me, Nan. Without you there's no day; you're the kiss
of the mountain wind and the light of the stars to me. Without the
thought of you I'd sicken and faint in the saddle, I'd lose my way in
the hills; without you there would be no to-morrow. No matter where I
am, no matter how I feel, if I think of you strength wells into my
heart like a spring. I never could give you up."
He told her all would be well because it must be well; that she _must_
trust him; that he would bring her safe through every danger and every
storm, if she would only stick to him. And Nan, sobbing her fears one
by one out on his breast, put her arms around his neck and whispered
that for life or death, she _would_ stick.
It was not hard for de Spain next morning to find Duke Morgan. He was
anxious on Nan's account to meet him early. The difficulty was to meet
him without the mob of hangers-on whose appetite had been whetted with
the prospect of a death, and perhaps more than one, in the meeting of
men whose supremacy with the gun had never been successfully disputed.
It required all the diplomacy of Lefever to "pull off" a conference
between the two which should not from the start be hopeless, because
of a crowd of Duke's partisans whose presence would egg him on, in
spite of everything, to a combat. But toward eleven o'clock in the
morning, de Spain having been concealed like a circus performer every
minute earlier, Duke Morgan was found, alone, in a barber's hands in
the Mountain House. At the moment Duke left the revolving-chair and
walked to the cigar stand to pay his check, de Spain entered the shop
through the rear door opening from the hotel office.
Passing with an easy step the row of barbers lined up in waiting
beside their chairs, de Spain walked straight down the open aisle,
behind Morgan's back. While Duke bent over the case to select a cigar,
de Spain, passing, placed himself at the mountain-man's side and
between him and the street sunshine. It was taking an advantage, de
Spain was well aware, but under the circumstances he thought himself
entitled to a good light on Duke's eye.
De Spain wore an ordinary sack street suit, with no sign of a weapon
about him; but none of those who considered themselves favored
spectators of a long-awaited encounter felt any doubt as to his
ability to put his hand on one at incomparably short notice. There
was, however, no trace of hostility or suspicion in de Spain's
greeting.
"Hello, Duke Morgan," he said frankly. Morgan looked around. His face
hardened when he saw de Spain, and he involuntarily took a short step
backward. De Spain, with his left hand lying carelessly on the cigar
case, faced him. "I heard you wanted to see me," continued de Spain.
"I want to see you. How's your back since you went home?"
Morgan eyed him with a mixture of suspicion and animosity. He took
what was to him the most significant part of de Spain's greeting first
and threw his response into words as short as words could be chopped:
"What do you want to see me about?"
"Nothing unpleasant, I hope," returned de Spain. "Let's sit down a
minute."
"Say what you got to say."
"Well, don't take my head off, Duke. I was sorry to hear you were
hurt. And I've been trying to figure out how to make it easier for you
to get to and from town while you are getting strong. Jeffries and I
both feel there's been a lot of unnecessary hard feeling between the
Morgans and the company, and we want to ask you to accept this to show
some of it's ended." De Spain put his left hand into his side pocket
and held out an unsealed envelope to Morgan. Duke, taking the
envelope, eyed it distrustfully. "What's this?" he demanded, opening
it and drawing out a card.
"Something for easier riding. An annual pass for you and one over the
stage line between Calabasas and Sleepy Cat--with Mr. Jeffries's
compliments."
Like a flash, Morgan tore the card pass in two and threw it angrily to
the floor. "Tell 'Mr.' Jeffries," he exclaimed violently, "to----"
The man that chanced at that moment to be lying in the nearest chair
slid quietly but imperiously out from under the razor and started with
the barbers for the rear door, wiping the lather from one unshaven
side of his face with a neck towel as he took his hasty way. At the
back of the shop a fat man, sitting in a chair on the high,
shoe-shining platform, while a negro boy polished him, rose at
Morgan's imprecation and tried to step over the bootblack's head to
the floor below. The boy, trying to get out of the way, jumped back,
and the fat man fell, or pretended to fall, over him--for it might be
seen that the man, despite his size, had lighted like a cat on his
feet and was instantly half-way up to the front of the shop,
exclaiming profanely but collectedly at the lad's awkwardness, before
de Spain had had time to reply to the insult.
The noise and confusion of the incident were considerable. Morgan was
too old a fighter to look behind him at a critical moment. No man
could say he had meant to draw when he stamped the card underfoot, but
de Spain read it in his eye and knew that Lefever's sudden diversion
at the rear had made him hesitate; the crisis passed like a flash.
"Sorry you feel that way, Duke," returned de Spain, undisturbed. "It
is a courtesy we were glad to extend. And I want to speak to you about
Nan, too."
Morgan's face was livid. "What about her?"
"She has given me permission to ask your consent to our marriage,"
said de Spain, "sometime in the reasonable future."
It was difficult for Duke to speak at all, he was so infuriated. "You
can get my consent in just one way," he managed to say, "that's by
getting me."
"Then I'm afraid I'll never get it, for I'll never 'get' you, Duke."
A torrent of oaths fell from Morgan's cracked lips. He tried to tell
de Spain in his fury that he knew all about his underhanded work, he
called him more than one hard name, made no secret of his deadly
enmity, and challenged him to end their differences then and there.
De Spain did not move. His left hand again lay on the cigar case.
"Duke," he said, when his antagonist had exhausted his vituperation,
"I wouldn't fight you, anyway. You're crazy angry at me for no reason
on earth. If you'll give me just one good reason for feeling the way
you do toward me, and the way you've always acted toward me since I
came up to this country, I'll fight you."
"Pull your gun," cried Morgan with an imprecation.
"I won't do it. You call me a coward. Ask these boys here in the shop
whether they agree with you on that. You might as well call me an
isosceles triangle. You're just crazy sore at me when I want to be
friends with you. Instead of pulling my gun, Duke, I'll lay it out on
the case, here, to show you that all I ask of you is to talk reason."
De Spain, reaching with his left hand under the lapel of his coat,
took a Colt's revolver from its breast harness and laid it, the muzzle
toward himself, on the plate-glass top of the cigar stand. It reduced
him to the necessity of a spring into Morgan for the smallest chance
for his life if Morgan should draw; but de Spain was a desperate
gambler in such matters even at twenty-eight, and he laid his wagers
on what he could read in another's eye.
"There's more reasons than one why I shouldn't fight you," he said
evenly. "Duke, you're old enough to be my father--do you realize
that? What's the good of our shooting each other up?" he asked,
ignoring Morgan's furious interruptions. "Who's to look after Nan when
you go--as you must, before very many years? Have you ever asked
yourself that? Do you want to leave her to that pack of wolves in the
Gap? You know, just as well as I do, the Gap is no place for a
high-bred, fine-grained girl like Nan Morgan. But the Gap is your
home, and you've done right to keep her under your roof and under your
eye. Do you think _I'd_ like to pull a trigger on a man that's been a
father to Nan? Damnation, Duke, could you expect me to do it,
willingly? Nan is a queen. The best in the world isn't good enough for
her--I'm not good enough, I know that. She's dear to you, she is dear
to me. If you really want to see me try to use a gun, send me a man
that will insult or abuse her. If you want to use your own gun, use it
on me if I ever insult or abuse her--is that fair?"
"Damn your fine words," exclaimed Morgan slowly and implacably. "They
don't pull any wool over my eyes. I know you, de Spain--I know your
breed----"
"What's that?"
Morgan checked himself at that tone. "You can't sneak into my affairs
any deeper," he cried. "Keep away from my blood! I know how to take
care of my own. I'll do it. So help me God, if you ever take any one
of my kin away from me--it'll be over my dead body!" He ended with a
bitter oath and a final taunt: "Is that fair?"
"No," retorted de Spain good-naturedly, "it's not fair. And some day,
Duke, you'll be the first to say so. You won't shake hands with me
now, I know, so I'll go. But the day will come when you will."
He covered his revolver with his left hand, and replaced it under his
coat. The fat man who had been leaning patiently against a barber's
chair ten feet from the disputants, stepped forward again lightly as a
cat. "Henry," he exclaimed, in a low but urgent tone, his hand
extended, "just a minute. There's a long-distance telephone call on
the wire for you." He pointed to the office door. "Take the first
booth, Henry. Hello, Duke," he added, greeting Morgan with an extended
hand, as de Spain walked back. "How are you making it, old man?"
Duke Morgan grunted.
"Sorry to interrupt your talk," continued Lefever. "But the barns at
Calabasas are burning--telephone wires from there cut, too--they had
to pick up the Thief River trunk line to get a message through. Makes
it bad, doesn't it?" Lefever pulled a wry face. "Duke, there's
somebody yet around Calabasas that needs hanging, isn't there? Yes."