A SURPRISING SLIP
Scott was called by Lefever to conclude in secret the final
arrangements. The ground about the quaking asp grove, and nearest El
Capitan, afforded the best concealment close to the Gap. And to this
point Scott was directed to bring what men he could before daybreak
the following morning.
"It's a short notice to get many men together--of the kind we want,"
admitted Lefever. "You'll have to skirmish some between now and
midnight. What do you think you can do?"
Scott had already made up a tentative list. He named four: first,
Farrell Kennedy, who was in town, and said nobody should go if he
didn't; Frank Elpaso, the Texan; the Englishman, Tommie Meggeson; and
Wickwire, if he could be located--any one of them, Lefever knew, could
give an account of himself under all circumstances.
While Scott was getting his men together, de Spain, accompanied by
Lefever, was riding toward Music Mountain. Scott had urged on them but
one parting caution--not to leave the aspens until rain began
falling. When he spoke there was not a cloud in the sky. "It's going
to rain to-night, just the same," predicted Scott. "Don't leave the
trees till it gets going. Those Gap scouts will get under cover and be
hunting for a drink the minute it gets cold--I know them. You can ride
right over their toes, if you'll be patient."
The sun set across the range in a drift of grayish-black, low-lying
clouds, which seemed only to await its disappearance to envelop the
mountains and empty their moisture on the desert. By the time de Spain
and Lefever reached the end of their long ride a misty rain was
drifting down from the west. The two men had just ridden into the
quaking asps when a man coming out of the Gap almost rode into them.
The intruders had halted and were sufficiently hidden to escape
notice, had not Lefever's horse indiscreetly coughed. The man from the
Gap reined up and called out. Lefever answered.
"It's Bull Page," declared de Spain, after the exchange of a few
words, calling to Bull at the same time to come over to the shelter of
the trees.
"What's going on in there, Bull?" asked de Spain after Bull had told
him that Gale had driven him out, and he was heading for Calabasas.
"You tell," retorted Page. "Looks to me like old Duke's getting ready
to die. Gale says he's going to draw his will to-night, and don't
want nobody around--got old Judge Druel in there."
De Spain pricked up his ears. "What's that, Druel?" he demanded. Bull
repeated his declaration. Lefever broke into violent language at the
Sleepy Cat jurist's expense, and ended by declaring that no will
should be drawn in the Gap that night by Duke Morgan or anybody else,
unless he and Bull were made legatees.
Beyond this nothing could be learned from Bull, who was persuaded
without difficulty by Lefever to abandon the idea of riding to
Calabasas through the rain, and to spend the night with him in the
neighborhood, wherever fancy, the rain, and the wind--which was
rising--should dictate.
While the two were talking de Spain tried to slip away, unobserved by
Lefever, on his errand. He failed, as he expected to, and after some
familiar abuse, rode off alone, fortified by every possible suggestion
at the hands of a man to whom the slightest precaution was usually a
joke.
Mountains never look blacker than when one rides into them conscious
of the presence of enemies and alert for signs and sounds. But custom
dulls the edge of apprehension. De Spain rode slowly up the main road
without expecting to meet any one, and he reached the rise where the
trail forked to Duke's ranch unchallenged. Here he stopped his horse
and looked down toward the roof that sheltered Nan. Night had fallen
everywhere, and the increasing rain obscured even the outline of the
house. But a light shone through one uncurtained window. He waited
some time for a sound of life, for a door to open or close, or for the
dog to bark--he heard nothing. Slipping out of the wet saddle, he led
his horse in the darkness under the shelter of the lone pine-tree and,
securing him, walked slowly toward the house.
The light came from a window in the living-room. Up-stairs and toward
the kitchen everything was dark. De Spain walked gingerly around to
where he could command the living-room window. He could see within,
the figures of three men but, owing to the dim light and the distance
at which he stood, he could identify none of them with certainty.
Mindful of the admonitions he had been loaded with, he tramped around
the house in narrowing circles, pausing at times to look and listen.
In like manner he circled the barn and stables, until he had made sure
there was no ambush and that he was alone outside. He then went among
the horses and, working with a flash-light, found Nan's pony, a bridle
and, after an ineffectual search for a saddle, led the bareback horse
out to where his own stood. Walking over to Nan's window he signalled
and called to her. Getting no answer, he tossed a bit of gravel up
against her window. His signal met with no response and, caching his
rifle under the kitchen porch, he stepped around to the front of the
house, where, screened by a bit of shrubbery, he could peer at close
range into the living-room.
Standing before the fire burning in the open hearth, and with his back
to it, he now saw Gale Morgan. Sitting bolt upright beside the table,
square-jawed and obdurate, his stubby brier pipe supported by his hand
and gripped in his great teeth, Duke Morgan looked uncompromisingly
past his belligerent nephew into the fire. A third and elderly man,
heavy, red-faced, and almost toothless as he spoke, sat to the right
of the table in a rocking-chair, and looked at Duke; this was the old
lawyer and justice from Sleepy Cat, the sheriff's brother--Judge
Druel.
Nan was not to be seen. Gale, big and aggressive, was doing most of
the talking, and energetically, as was his habit. Duke listened
thoughtfully, but seemingly with coldness. Druel looked from Gale to
Duke, and appeared occasionally to put in a word to carry the argument
along.
De Spain suspected nothing of what they were talking about, but he was
uneasy concerning Nan, and was not to be balked, by any combination,
of his purpose of finding her. To secure information concerning her
was not possible, unless he should enter the house, and this, with
scant hesitation, he decided to do.
He wore a snug-fitting leathern coat. He unbuttoned this and threw it
open as he stepped noiselessly up to the door. Laying his hand on the
knob, he paused, then, finding the door unlocked, he pushed it slowly
open.
The wind, rushing in, upset his calculations and blew open the door
leading from the hall into the living-room. A stream of light in turn
shot through the open door, across the hall. Instantly de Spain
stepped inside and directly behind the front door--which he now
realized he dare not close--and stood expectant in the darkness. Gale
Morgan, with an impatient exclamation, strode from the fireplace to
close the front door.
As he walked into the hall and slammed the front door shut, he could
have touched with his hand the man standing in the shadow behind it.
De Spain, not hoping to escape, stood with folded arms, but under the
elbow of his left arm was hidden the long muzzle of his revolver.
Holding his breath, he waited. Gale's mind was apparently filled with
other things. He did not suspect the presence of an intruder, and he
walked back into the living-room, partly closing the second door. De
Spain, following almost on his heels, stepped past this door, past the
hall stairs opposite it, and through a curtained opening at the end of
the hall into the dining-room. Barely ten feet from him, this room
opened through an arch into the living-room, and where he stood he
could hear all that was said.
"Who's there?" demanded Duke gruffly.
"Nobody," said Gale. "Go on, Druel."
"That door never opened itself," persisted Duke.
"The wind blew it open," said Gale impatiently.
"I tell y' it didn't," responded Duke sternly; "somebody came in
there, or went out. Maybe she's slipped y'."
"Go up-stairs and see," bellowed Gale at his uncle.
Duke walked slowly out into the hall and, with some difficulty, owing
to his injured back, up the stairs. A curtain hung beside the arch
where de Spain stood, and this he now drew around him. Gale walked
into the hall again, searched it, and waited at the foot of the
stairs. De Spain could hear Duke's rough voice up-stairs, but could
neither distinguish his words nor hear any response to them. Within a
moment the elder man tramped heavily down again, saying only, "She's
there," and, followed by Gale, returned to the living-room.
"Now go on, Druel," exclaimed Gale, sitting down impatiently, "and
talk quick."
Druel talked softly and through his nose: "I was only going to say it
would be a good idea to have two witnesses."
"Nita," suggested Gale.
Duke was profane. "You couldn't keep the girl in the room if she had
Nita to help her. And I want it understood, Gale, between you and me,
fair and square, that Nan's goin' to live right here with me after
this marriage till I'm satisfied she's willing to go to you--otherwise
it can't take place, now nor never."
De Spain opened his ears. Gale felt the hard, cold tone of his crusty
relative, and answered with like harshness: "What do you keep harping
on that for? You've got my word. All I want of you is to keep
yours--understand?"
"Come, come," interposed Druel. "There's no need of hard words. But we
need two witnesses. Who's going to be the other witness?"
Before any one could answer de Spain stepped out into the open archway
before the three men. "I'll act as the second witness," he said.
With a common roar the Morgans bounded to their feet. They were not
unused to sudden onslaughts, nor was either of them a man to shrink
from a fight at short quarters, if it came to that, but blank
astonishment overwhelmed both. De Spain, standing slightly sidewise,
his coat lapels flapped wide open, his arms akimbo, and his hands on
his hips, faced the three in an attitude of readiness only. He had
reckoned on the instant of indecision which at times, when coupled
with apprehension, paralyzes the will of two men acting together.
Under the circumstances either of the Morgans alone would have whipped
a gun on de Spain at sight. Together, and knowing that to do so meant
death to the one that took the first shot from the archway, each
waited for the other; that fraction of a second unsettled their
purpose. Instead of bullets, each launched curses at the intruder, and
every second that passed led away from a fight.
De Spain took their oaths, demands, and abuse without batting an eye.
"I'm here for the second witness," was all he repeated, covering both
men with short glances. Druel, his face muddily white as the whiskey
bloat deserted it, shrunk inside his shabby clothes. He seemed, every
time de Spain darted a look at him, to grow visibly smaller, until his
loose bulk had shrivelled inside an armchair hardly large enough
normally to contain it.
De Spain with each epithet hurled at him took a dreaded forward step
toward Gale, and Druel, in the line of fire, brought his knees up and
his head down till he curled like a porcupine. Gale, game as he
undoubtedly was, cornered, felt perhaps recollections of Calabasas and
close quarters with the brown eyes and the burning face. What they
might mean in this little room, which de Spain was crossing step by
step, was food for thought. Nor did de Spain break his obstinate
silence until their burst of rage had blown. "You've arranged your
marriage," he said at length. "Now pull it."
"My cousin's ready to marry me, and she's goin' to do it to-night,"
cried Gale violently.
Duke, towering with rage, looked at de Spain and pointed to the hall
door. "You hear that! Get out of my house!" he cried, launching a
vicious epithet with the words.
"This isn't your house," retorted de Spain angrily. "This house is
Nan's, not yours. When she orders me out I'll go. Bring her down," he
thundered, raising his voice to shut off Duke, who had redoubled his
abuse. "Bring her into this room," he repeated. "We'll see whether she
wants to get married. If she does, I'll marry her. If she doesn't, and
you've been putting this up to force her into marrying, so help me
God, you'll be carried out of this room to-night, or I will." He
whirled on her uncle with an accusing finger. "You used to be a man,
Duke. I've taken from you here to-night what I would take from no man
on earth but for the sake of Nan Morgan. She asked me never to touch
you. But if you've gone into this thing to trap your own flesh and
blood, your dead brother's girl, living under your own protection, you
don't deserve mercy, and to-night you shall have what's coming to you.
I've fought you both fair, too fair. Now--before I leave--it's my girl
or both of you."
He was standing near Druel. Without taking his eyes off the other men,
he caught Druel with his left hand by the coat collar, and threw him
half-way across the room. "Get up-stairs, you old carrion, and tell
Nan Morgan, Henry de Spain is here to talk to her."
Druel, frightened to death, scrambled into the hall. He turned on de
Spain. "I'm an officer of the law. I arrest you for trespass and
assault," he shouted, shaking with fear.
"Arrest _me_?" echoed de Spain contemptuously. "You scoundrel, if you
don't climb those stairs I'll send you to the penitentiary the day I
get back to town. Up-stairs with your message!"
"It isn't necessary," said a low voice in the hall, and with the words
Nan appeared in the open doorway. Her face was white, but there was
no sign of haste or panic in it; de Spain choked back a breath; to him
she never had looked in her silence so awe-inspiring.
He addressed her, holding his left hand out with his plea. "Nan," he
said, controlling his voice, "these men were getting ready to marry
you to Gale Morgan. No matter how you feel toward me now, you know me
well enough to know that all I want is the truth: Was this with your
consent?"
She stepped into the line of fire between her cousin and de Spain as
she answered. "No. You know I shall never marry any man but you. This
vile bully," she turned a little to look at her angry cousin, "has
influenced Uncle Duke--who never before tried to persecute or betray
me--into joining him in this thing. They never could have dragged me
into it alive. And they've kept me locked for three days in a room
up-stairs, hoping to break me down."
"Stand back, Nan."
If de Spain's words of warning struck her with terror of a situation
she could not control, she did not reveal it. "No," she said
resolutely. "If anybody here is to be shot, I'll be first. Uncle Duke,
you have always protected me from Gale Morgan; now you join hands with
him. You drive me from this roof because I don't know how I can
protect myself under it."
Gale looked steadily at her. "You promised to marry me," he muttered
truculently. "I'll find a way to make you keep your word."
A loud knocking interrupted him, and, without waiting to be admitted,
Pardaloe, the cowboy, opened the front door and stalked boldly in from
the hall.
If the situation in the room surprised him he gave no evidence of it.
And as he walked in Nan disappeared. Pardaloe was drenched with rain,
and, taking off his hat as he crossed the room to the fire, he shook
it hard into the blazing wood.
"What do you want, Pardaloe?" snapped Duke.
Pardaloe shook his hat once more and turned a few steps so that he
stood between the uncurtained window and the light. "The creek's up,"
he said to Duke in his peculiarly slow, steady tone. "Some of Satt's
boys are trying to get the cattle out of the lower corral." He
fingered his hat, looked first at Duke, then at Gale, then at de
Spain. "Guess they'll need a little help, so I asked Sassoon to come
over--" Pardaloe jerked his head indicatively toward the front. "He's
outside with some of the boys now."
"Tell Sassoon to come in here!" thundered Gale.
De Spain's left arm shot out. "Hold on, Pardaloe; pull down that
curtain behind you!"
"Don't touch that curtain, Pardaloe!" shouted Gale Morgan.
"Pardaloe," said de Spain, his left arm pointing menacingly and
walking instantly toward him, "pull that curtain or pull your gun,
quick." At that moment Nan, in hat and coat, reappeared in the archway
behind de Spain. Pardaloe jerked down the curtain and started for the
door. De Spain had backed up again. "Stop, Pardaloe," he called. "My
men are outside that door. Stand where you are," he ordered, still
enforcing his commands with his right hand covering the holster at his
hip. "I leave this room first. Nan, are you ready?" he asked, without
looking at her.
"Yes."
Her uncle's face whitened. "Don't leave this house to-night, Nan," he
said menacingly.
"You've forced me to, Uncle Duke."
"Don't leave this house to-night."
"I can't protect myself in it."
"Don't leave this house--most of all, with that man!" He pointed at de
Spain with a frenzy of hatred. Without answering, the two were
retreating into the semidarkness of the dining-room. "Nan," came her
uncle's voice, hoarse with feeling, "you're saying good-by to me
forever."
"No, uncle," she cried. "I am only doing what I have to do."
"I tell you I don't want to drive you from this roof, girl."
A rush of wind from an opening door was the only answer from the dark
dining-room. The two Morgans started forward together. The sudden gust
sucked the flame of the living-room lamp up into the chimney and after
a brief, sharp struggle extinguished it. In the confusion it was a
moment before a match could be found. When the lamp was relighted the
Morgans ran into the dining-room. The wind and rain poured in through
the open north door. But the room was empty.
Duke turned on his nephew with a choking curse. "This," he cried,
beside himself with fury, "is your work!"