Bruce Standing--Timber-Wolf, as he exulted in being called--was a man
of few friends and many enemies. In and about Big Pine men disliked
him wholeheartedly; many hated him so that they would have been glad
to know that he was dead. And this was chiefly because he jeered at
them and overrode them; because at every opportunity, going out of his
way to make opportunity more often than not, he thrust them aside and
trod his unobstructed path through and over them, setting his heel upon
many; because he spat upon their laws and made his own. And he, in his
turn, held them in high contempt simply because always they stood aside
for him. Those few who did not hate him were the handful of hard men
whom, in the working out of his wide, overweening ambitions, he had
drawn to him like so many feudal henchmen; they were, in their lesser
degrees, of his stamp; they belonged in their hearts to an older day
and a wider frontier; there were scores taking his pay whose blood ran
hot and lawless.
So to-night he came riding down the winding trail from his mountains,
singing. Thus he shot his spirit across the miles ahead of him, to
invade Big Pine before his coming, to taunt before he brought his hard
eyes to mock at them. He had received his word and his warning, and
made his retort in the one way possible to him.
The road in front of the Gallup House, leading on to the pines and
the aloof jail where Mexicali Joe glared out, was thronged. Half a
dozen bonfires had been started, and in the ruddy light men stirred
restlessly. Their talk was becoming purposeful; they gathered in
knots about men who were showing impatient signs of initiative; they
had murmured and were looking this way and that, over their shoulders,
shifting their feet as they gave increasingly free expression to their
determination. They were working themselves up to the pitch of defiance
of the law, as represented by Sheriff Jim Taggart; as yet no man cared
to be first and still they looked frequently at the deputy sheriff with
the rifle across his arm, and meant to set Mexicali Joe free. A man
broke away from one of these groups and ran back to the Gallup House,
to carry warning to Taggart.
It was at this moment that Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf, rode into
town. He rode alone, on a powerful red-bay gelding, silent now, a
great-bulked man sitting straight in the saddle. One saw nothing of his
face under the wide black hat.
He had no word of greeting for any man of them; after his
characteristic coldly insolent way, he appeared to ignore them utterly.
On the instant he, rather than Mexicali Joe, became the central object
of interest. Most knew who he was and what he stood for, and wherein
his visit among them was to be regarded as worthy of interest; those
who did not know, marked the hush which greeted him, and in lowered
voices demanded the explanation which, in voices equally low, was
briefly given. They looked for him to draw rein at Gallup's and swing
down and go in. But, knowing that you could never be sure of him, they
watched to see.
He disappointed them. That, in itself, was like him. No doubt he got
his bit of glee out of knowing that, where they had looked to him
for one thing, he had given them another. He rode on by Gallup's
without turning his head. Where a tree grew at the road-crossing
he dismounted, tying his horse. They saw that his rifle was in its
scabbard, slung to the saddle; he left it where it was, and went
forward on foot. Bigger than ever he loomed among them, appearing to
walk leisurely, yet taking the long, measured strides which carried him
along swiftly. They let him go on his way, their eyes following him
with growing interest, some of the more curious of the crowd stringing
along in his wake. And all this time no man had given him the time of
day, and he had not opened his lips.
Meanwhile they saw him turn his head this way and that, as though he
sought something. Before he had gone fifty paces he found what he
wanted. A man was piling wood on his fire; the axe which he had used a
moment ago lay on the ground, glinting in the firelight. Bruce Standing
stooped and caught it up and went on--straight toward the jail. A
sudden shout from many voices burst out; men came running to see, now
that they understood what he meant to do. And those about the jail,
when they saw, drew back to right and left hurriedly, leaving only the
deputy with the rifle across his arm to block the way.
Now, the axe could mean only one thing in the world, and the deputy saw
it, and saw who it was that carried it and called out a sharp, throaty
warning. Standing came on, his stride quickened. He was not a dozen
steps away, carrying his axe lightly in his right hand. The deputy
jerked his rifle up, the butt to his shoulder, shouting:
"Stop, or...."
The man fired, but he was not quick enough. At that distance, had his
finger touched the hair-trigger the tenth of a second sooner, he could
not have failed to kill. But he was not the man, even though armed,
to dictate to Timber-Wolf. For Standing made instant answer to that
command, "Stop!" and hurled his only weapon, a heavy wood-cutter's axe,
straight into the deputy's face. The bullet went wild; the man who had
fired it, through the rarest chance left alive, went down in a heap,
unconscious before he struck ground. For, though the axe blade had very
narrowly missed his face, the hard hickory handle had taken him full
across the eyebrows and came near being the death of him. His rifle
clattered against the rock wall of the jail.
Bruce Standing, who had paused but the briefest moment, came on and
stepped over the fallen man, and caught up his axe again. He stooped
long enough to make out that the deputy's head was not split open; then
he swung up his axe, high above his head, and brought it crashing down
against the thick oak padlocked door. The sound of the stroke echoed
and the echoes were lost in the striking of the second blow. And, when
for the third time the axe rose and fell, flashing in the light of the
fires, the door fell.
"Out you come, Joe."
Standing's deep, full voice rumbled in a sort of rich, placid content.
And out like a rabbit, darted Mexicali Joe, looking pinched and starved
and frightened.
"It is you, Señor!" he gasped.
"The crowd will be after you," said Standing. "And I'm not going to
worry about what happens to you after this."
He was turning away when Joe caught his sleeve, and stood on his
tiptoes and began a rapid, excited whispering. Standing hesitated, then
laughed and shook the man off.
"You are a good little sport, Mexico," he chuckled. "Now, on your way."
Joe, with never another look behind him, turned and ran, disappearing
about the corner of the jail, sending back an account of himself in
the sound of his racing footfalls among the pines.
Once again came a great shouting from the crowd in the road; they had
seen, and now that they had their hearts' desire in having Mexicali
Joe free, they saw themselves losing all hope of coming at his secret
because they were losing him. Their brief interest in Bruce Standing
was dead for the present; Joe ran like a scared cat, and they, like so
many yelping dogs, set after him. And Timber-Wolf, watching, standing
where he was with his big hands on his hips, roared with laughter.
Babe Deveril and the girl, Lynette Brooke, had seen much of all this.
They were at the time on their way to the Gallup House, she to her
room and he to his meeting with his lawless kinsman. Thus it happened
that Deveril's first sight of Timber-Wolf in half a dozen years, and
Lynette's first sight of him in all her life, was at a moment when he
was engaged in an episode of the type which made him stand apart as the
man he was.
"Taggart ought to kill him for that," grunted Deveril. "And he probably
will before the night is over."
The girl shivered as she had done just now when she saw a rifle
raised and an axe flung. And yet within her, being woman, there was
the exultation which would not stay down, and the thought: "He is
magnificent.... A brute, maybe, but surely magnificent!" And she knew
that she would never be content until she had seen his face and looked
into his eyes. Already, being woman, she was concerned with his eyes;
whether they would be large or small, set wide apart or close together.
She wanted him to be the lion, not the wild boar.
The remainder of the night's happenings was to come, because of the
simple arrangement of rooms at the Gallup House, within the experience
of both Deveril and Lynette. They saw Bruce Standing go down the road
and followed him. He did not once look back. When he came to his
horse, he stopped only long enough to take down his rifle. Plainly
now he meant to go direct to the Gallup House. All the while men were
streaming by him, hurrying to join in the chase after the escaping
Mexicali Joe. So, by the time he came to Gallup's door, there were not
over a score of men remaining in the house.
The Gallup House was a long, squat building of two low stories, its
three main rooms on the ground floor facing the road. These were the
dining-room; a room given over to Gallup's office, and sufficient space
for a dozen chairs and a big sheet-iron stove--a sort of living-room
for Gallup's guests, when he had any; and, finally, a room which had in
older times been the barroom, and which, despite changing conditions,
remained in practice a barroom. At this hour both dining-room and
sitting-room were deserted, and the score or so of men, Gallup and
Taggart among them, were in the bar. Here were round tables, for it was
a big room, for games of cards or dice.
Deveril and the girl parted at the centre door through which she
entered direct into the general living-room. They saw Bruce Standing go
to the last of the three doors and step in unhesitantly, still carrying
his rifle lightly. Deveril followed him, and saw the looks on the faces
of Taggart and Gallup and some of their following.
"I stepped in to buy the drinks for the crowd," Timber-Wolf said
quietly, all the while his eyes flashing back and forth. "Gents, the
treats are on me."
Jim Taggart, his hands on his hips, was eying him like a hawk, and in
Taggart's face was a dull, hot flush. Gallup, however, standing close
at Taggart's side, was the first to speak. He cried out angrily:
"No man drinks with you in my house! Not as long as I live. And...."
Bruce Standing drew a wallet from his pocket.
"About twenty men here," he said, in the same slow, steady voice. "As
it's a night of celebration, we'll make it a dollar a drink. That's
twenty bucks, easy money, Young Gallup," he wound up with a sneer in
his voice. For all men knew Gallup's cupidity, which clutched at small
as well as large amounts.
But Gallup, shaken with rage, only shouted back at him:
"To hell with your twenty dollars! And with you, Bruce Standing!"
"So? Well, twenty dollars isn't much, after all, is it? Gents, we drink
to-night and damn the cost! Two bones for every glass of whiskey;
that's forty of the iron men, Gallup. Call Ricky with the bottles."
A couple of men laughed at that. Gallup, however, seeing himself
baited, roared out:
"I tell you, _no_! And out you go. You are not wanted here."
"Low bid loses, high bid wins," said Standing. Now he opened his wallet
and disclosed a tight pad of bills. "Three dollars for each and every
glass of imitation hootch! God, what a pirate you are, Gallup! Now,
trot it out."
"Sixty dollars, clean-cut velvet, Gal," said a man at his elbow,
willing to drink with the devil so the drink came paid for.
"And at last Young Gallup hesitates, his soul tempted by a row of dirty
pennies," gibed Standing. "Look, men, and you'll see that pale-yellow
soul of his snared clean out of his stingy hide. Look, Gallup! And
if you can say no this time you have established a new record for
yourself!"
Slowly, while they watched him, he counted off ten ten-dollar
bank-notes, and, with a careless gesture, tossed them to a table.
"That's for one round of your rotten bootleg liquor," he said
contemptuously. "Now, step out, Gallup, and show them the sort of
money-grabbing porker you are. You know you haven't got the guts to
save your own besmirched pride at the price of a hundred dollars."
Gallup would have sold out for far less, but Timber-Wolf was not the
man to haggle over what he termed dirty pennies. He shrugged his heavy
shoulders and caught up the money, counting it carefully, stuffing it
into his pocket and growling:
"You're not wanted here, Standing; but any time you're fool enough to
pay a hundred dollars for the privilege, I'll take the rules down for a
round of drinks! Hey, Ricky!"
Standing only grunted at that, though his eyes flashed.
"I come when I please and where I please, and you know it, Young
Gallup! And if you think you are the man to throw _me_ out, hop to it
and don't let a little hundred dollars hold you back! Better than that;
if you'll tie into me right now and chuck me out of doors, getting all
your hangdogs that will take a chance with you to help you, you've got
my word that I'll add a second hundred as your bonus! Or a thousand, by
heaven! And right now you'll toe the scratch or back down and shut your
mouth."
Gallup had never before in his life been faced down like that. And with
so many men looking on! Yet in his heart, though no man had ever called
him a coward, he was afraid of Timber-Wolf; mortally afraid. There was
the look of death itself in the eyes flashing into his own. He sought
to laugh the thing off, saying, with what semblance of fine scorn he
could master:
"_Your_ word!"
"I am no liar," said Standing wrathfully. "And no man in all Arizona
and New Mexico ever called me liar. Do you, Young Gallup?"
"Bruce!" called Sheriff Taggart sharply, for the first time speaking a
word. "What's the sense of trying to start a row? Drop all this foolery
and let me have a word with you."
"That's fair enough," agreed Standing. "I've no desire to break
Gallup's neck so long as he leaves me alone. But make it snappy, as I
have another engagement."
"I want to talk with you privately, Bruce." Taggart obviously was
angry, and yet it was equally clear that when it came to dealing with
the Timber-Wolf, Jim Taggart meant to hold himself well in hand.
"I won't stand for corner-whisperings," Standing told him sternly. "If
it happens you've got anything for my set of ears, they're listening.
But it's right now or never."
Taggart's black and ominous scowl deepened, and he shuffled his feet
back and forth, and in the end stamped them in his anger. But still he
held the curb line upon himself.
"You always was a strong-headed man, Bruce, that would have things his
way. So be it. And I guess, being a man myself that stands on his own
two legs, I can say it all in one mouthful: You and me has always been
friends. Are we that yet?"
Now for the first time Lynette Brooke, looking in from the adjoining
room through a door just ajar, saw Timber-Wolf clearly, his face under
his big hat unhidden as he turned a little in order to look straight
at Taggart. He did not see her, and she looked her fill at him; he
gave her a start of surprise, and after that start came a surge of
admiration. He was a young, blond giant of a man, eyes very blue and
laughing and _innocent_! And wide-spaced! A man no older than Babe
Deveril, one who bore himself like some old buccaneer or Norse Viking,
before men who would have given much for the courage and the power to
fly at his bared white throat and drag the life out of him; a man who
overflowed with his superabundant vital energy, and who stamped his own
character, through sheer force of unbroken will, upon others about him;
a man who believed in himself and who was at once implacable and gay.
Heartless he looked, and yet full of the dancing joy of life. She felt
herself on the instant both strongly drawn to him and frightened; the
mad vision presented itself to her of herself in his mighty arms. And
the odd tremor which shook her body, as she whipped back with flaming
face, was compounded of thrill and shiver. He confused her; at once she
was amazed that he could be like this and convinced that the owner of
that glorious voice which she had heard pulsing out across the fields
of night could be no jot different.... While she drew back to a dim
corner of the room, she managed not to lose sight of him.
His clear blue eyes kept on laughing; his was that silent laughter
which arises from the soul, and which mocked and insulted and was like
the cold mirth of Satan. And yet, in some vague way which she was all
at loss to plumb, and which troubled her strangely, Lynette Brooke
_knew_ that this corsair of a man was laughing because there was cold
anger in his heart and because, for some mysterious reason of his own,
he was set on holding his anger hidden. It troubled her so that, within
herself, she cried out passionately against _knowing_ through leaping
instinct anything of what might be going on within the dark caverns of
the Timber-Wolf's mind and heart. She wanted him and herself to be as
far apart as north and south; she meant them to be. And all the while
that compelling interest which he awoke within her tugged mightily and
she yielded to it in that, keeping out of his sight, she lost nothing
of the play of expressions upon his face.
As yet she knew nothing of that one thing which Bruce Standing,
forthright exponent of untrammelled manhood, held to be his greatest
weakness; the one and only thing of which he was bitterly ashamed. A
trifle, it amounted to; and a trifle he would have accounted it in any
other strong man. Yet within his hard breast it awoke the intensest
feeling of shame. And it was a thing which invariably sprang forth
upon him and humiliated him whenever once he let his passions fly. A
laughable thing, and yet one that put tears into his bright blue eyes.
But, on guard against it, he strove to curb his anger.
Of all this and the thing itself she knew nothing. But she felt and she
knew that the Timber-Wolf, laughing into Jim Taggart's gloomy face,
was fighting down his own anger, as a man may fight wild beasts. She
awaited, scarcely breathing, the answer he would make to that question
from Taggart: "Are we still friends?"
"No!" shouted Standing, and laughed at him. "No, by God!"
That was man talk! Straight, simple words--words that left little
enough to be said. But Taggart, though his face grew hotter and his
eyes seemed burning in their sockets, demanded further:
"And why not, Bruce Standing? You and me have been pardners. You
know and I know and a thousand men know what sort of a bond and an
understanding has always, for more than a dozen years, been between
us. And now, if that is busted and wiped out, I ask you, as man to man:
'_Why?_'"
"And as man to man," cried Timber-Wolf, his eyes brightening, "I'll
answer you, Jim Taggart. When I knew you for a man who played his
game he-man style and stood up and fought hard and took his chances,
I was for you! And I went out and shaped things up for you and made
you sheriff. And, when men got to know you and wanted no more of you
as master of law here in the mountains, I lifted you over their heads
and made you sheriff again and again. And now that you are done for
and are on your last legs, I would have done the same thing once
more. But when you got panicky, thinking that this was your last term
of office, and began to feather your dirty nest by running with the
breed of this Young Gallup and his crowd, and when I found the sort
of contemptible, hide-in-the-brush jobs you were pulling off, I got a
bellyful of you and your new kind of ways. And you double-crossed me,
thinking I wouldn't know! And on top of everything else, running neck
and neck with Gallup, you threw Mexicali Joe into jail ... knowing that
Joe, puny blackbird as he is, had been a friend of mine. For that I've
done two things, Jim Taggart: I've smashed your damned jail door off
its hinges and I've thrown you over. And there, until I'm sick of talk
about it, you've got your answer!"
Taggart, too, and with his own ulterior reasons, kept his head cool. He
said ponderously:
"You broke the law, Bruce, when you let Joe go. For that I could run
you in. But all Joe done was steal a pocketful of nuggets, and we got
them back. And there's bigger things than that, anyway. You and me has
been friends and so I'll go slow. But we got to have another talk.
You've got me down wrong, old-timer."
Never had Lynette Brooke seen such utter contempt as that which now
filled Bruce Standing's eyes. But he made no answer. At this moment the
man Ricky came in with a gallon earthen jug and began to pour out the
glasses set upon a table. Here was the Timber-Wolf's hundred-dollar
treat. Standing himself waved it aside and:
"I drink no poison in this house," he said briefly. And as he spoke he
saw for the first time Babe Deveril standing just inside the door, not
two steps behind him.
"By the Lord, Babe, I'm glad to see you! Shake!" he shouted, thrusting
out his big hand.
But now it was Deveril's turn to be cool and contemptuous.
"You and I, Bruce Standing," he said in that clear, insolent voice of
his, "have gone a long way beyond the point of shaking hands."
Standing frowned as he muttered:
"Don't be a young ass, Babe."
But Deveril only shook his head, retorting:
"I have come, according to promise, for a word with you. Suppose we
make it snappy."
"The same little Baby Devil!" Standing jeered at him, making Deveril
stiffen with that look of his eyes. "I'll give you a new dance tune
before I'm through with you. Come ahead!"--and with a suddenness which
took Lynette Brooke by surprise he struck back the door leading to the
room where she was and led the way in, Deveril at his heels.
But, though there were three or four coal-oil lamps burning in the room
which he had just quitted, there was but one here where she was. And
because its chimney was smoky and the flame burned crookedly and she
was in a dim corner, he could make nothing of the look of her. Had she
remained perfectly still he would scarcely have noted her presence. But
now she was suddenly impatient to be gone, and went hurrying to a door
which led into a hallway, the hallway in turn leading to her room at
the back of the house.
"A woman," growled Timber-Wolf disgustedly, getting only a glimpse of a
hastily departing figure. "It begins to look as though a man couldn't
pick him a spot in the wilderness that the female didn't crowd in."
Lynette heard, and knew with a flash of resentment that he did not care
whether she had heard or not, and that with the last word he would
be turning to Deveril and forgetting that he had seen her. She went
slowly down the hall, three or four paces only. There she paused and
lingered; it was no such pale incentive as curiosity which held her
now, but a peculiar fascination. Two men like those two, by far the
strongest-willed and most dynamic men she had ever known, with the
business which lay between them, made her ignore and give no thought to
the convention of shut ears against the talk of others. So she stood
here in the dim hallway, poised for instant flight if need be to her
own door, a couple of yards farther on.
"Now," said Deveril impatiently, "what is it?"
Timber-Wolf's mood softened and the old bright laughter welled up in
his dancing blue eyes.
"I pass it to you, Kid," he chuckled. "You've grown a man since last we
met. We'll not forget, either one of us ... will we?... that night in
my cabin?"
"I'll not forget," returned Deveril coolly. "And some day I'll square
the count."
"_You'll_ square the count?" The keen eyes twinkled like bits of
deep-blue glass on a frosty morning. "I was under the impression that
always you have held that I was the man to square things. Accusing me,
as you did, of so wicked a deed!"
"It was a treacherous thing at best," muttered Deveril, his own eyes
bleak with that bitter hatred which never slept. "I didn't know then
that you were, among other things, a damned thief."
Timber-Wolf's sudden laughter boomed out joyously, and he smote his
thigh so that the sound was sharp and loud, like a gunshot.
"But you knew that always and always and once again always I take what
I want! I asked you for the money, and I made you a fair proposition: I
would guarantee that you doubled your dinky three thousand, and I'd see
you had interest on top of it. And you hadn't the nerve to chip in...."
"Wasn't the fool, you mean!"
"And so ... I went and took it! And I took from other quarters the same
way. What I wanted I took. And when they all said I was busted in two,
like a rotten stick, I fooled 'em, and laughed at the whole crowd. And
now I'm whole again--and I've got what I want. That's me, Baby Devil! A
man who goes his way and blazes his trail wide. A man you can't stop!"
"A cursed, insufferable, conceited ass, rather than wolf," snapped
Deveril.
And still, in the rarest of high good humor, Timber-Wolf laughed, and
his rich, deep voice went rumbling through the house.
"You're sore, Baby Devil. And you're envious."
"Not of you, Bruce Standing! You...."
"Let's chop out the Sunday-school stuff, Kid!" cried Standing
impatiently. "I don't need your lecturings. Maybe I'm not what your
puling moralists call a good man, and maybe I'm not 'clean-hearted and
pure' and all that drivel. But, by God, I'm a man who's got his own
code and who sticks to it, blow high, blow low! A code that, if more
men followed it, would give us a world with more men in it and fewer
mollycoddle pups!"
"It would appear," sneered Deveril, "that you remain well contented
with yourself!"
"Like the rest of humanity--he, she, and it!" said Timber-Wolf equably.
"And so much for friendly chatter. Now a word whispered in your pretty
ear, since the Lord knoweth how many busybodies are straining their own
ears to listen-in on us."
Lynette, in the hallway, stiffened and felt her face grow hot. But,
with a strange new-born stubbornness, she remained where she was.
Timber-Wolf came a step closer to Deveril, and, lowering his voice so
that Lynette lost the words, he muttered:
"I _am_ under obligations to you, my dear kinsman, and since there is a
tough crowd in town, any man of whom would whack you over the head for
a handful of silver, I am keeping this between us." He took his wallet
from his pocket the second time, and drew from it several bank-notes.
These he proffered to Deveril, his eyes still bright with his cold
mirth.
"Count it and stick it in your jeans," he said softly. "There's your
three thousand. With it is another three thousand, the double of the
bet which I promised you. And with that is another two thousand, which
is a gain of ten per cent for you for six years, all rough figuring. In
all eight thousand in coin of the realm ... and I'm much obliged," he
ended mockingly, "for your generous loan!"
Babe Deveril, taken off his feet by the unexpectedness of this, stared
at the bank-notes in the great hard palm, and from them to the grinning
face. And slowly, from a conflicting tumult of emotions, in which,
strangely enough, anger surged highest, Deveril's face went violently
red.
"Damn you and your eternal posings!" Lynette caught those words,
clear and high. But she missed the eloquence of the shrug into which
Timber-Wolf's shoulders lifted.
"It's up to you, Kid," said Standing, and still he kept his voice low
and quiet. The money lay in his outstretched palm. "The minute I make
my offer I consider my obligation fulfilled. If you are too proud to
take it ... well, then, the devil take you for a fool, and I'll use the
money elsewhere."
Deveril put out his hand, selecting from the several bills.
"My three thousand, I take," he said, "because it is mine. And the two
thousand with it, judging that fair interest, considering the risks
my money took. As for the rest--" he whipped back, and his voice,
because of the emotions near choking him, was little more than a harsh
whisper--"you can keep it and go to hell with it! I want none of your
cursed charity!"
Timber-Wolf's thick eyebrows lifted, and a new look dawned in his eyes.
"By thunder, Baby Devil, you've the makings of a man in you!" he
exclaimed. "You and I could be friends!"
"Don't fool yourself. We won't be!"
"I didn't say we would!" And Bruce Standing glared at him angrily. "I
only said we _could_. There's a difference there, Kid. I could eat
tripe, but I'm damned if I ever will!"
As the two men eyed each other, it was impossible to conceive of any
earthly happening bringing them within the warm enclosure of man's
friendship.
But there was money in sight, and money in the hands of Timber-Wolf
was habitually offered to fate as free money. And always, in the heart
of Babe Deveril, when there was money in his pocket and money in sight,
there was the impulse to hazard, to win or lose, and know the wild
moment of a gambler's pleasure. And so he said swiftly:
"Just the same, I have a claim on that three thousand of yours!"
"Yes?" And again the heavy eyebrows were lifted as Timber-Wolf's
interest was snared.
"If it's mine, it comes to me. If it's yours, you keep it and take
three thousand from me to boot. I'll flip a coin with you!"
"Baby Devil!" laughed Standing softly. "Oh, Baby Devil, if your mamma
could only see you now!"
"Are you on?" demanded Deveril, in a suppressed voice.
"On? With bells, Baby Devil! Heads or tails, and let her flicker!"
Lynette Brooke could catch only enough of all this to set her
wondering. The two men were agreeing upon something, and all the while
jeering at each other, and, though they checked their words and subdued
their voices, anger was directing whatever they did or meant to do.
Both men were eager and tense. For both made of life a game of hazard.
With Babe Deveril three thousand dollars, to be won or lost in the
flicker of an eyelid, was a large sum of money; to Bruce Standing, a
man of millions, it was no great thing. Yet neither of them was more
tense and eager than the other. The game was the thing.
Automatically, perhaps subconsciously intending to have a free hand,
since his rifle was still held in his left, Bruce Standing stuffed his
spurned bank-notes into his pocket. But it was Deveril who, having
conceived the idea, was first to produce a coin; a silver dollar, and
mate to those other silver dollars which he had presented to the girl,
Maria.
"Heads or tails, Standing?" he demanded, holding the coin ready to toss
ceilingward.
"Throw it," said Timber-Wolf, with his characteristic grin, "and I name
it while it's in the air. For I don't know what sleight-of-hand you
may have acquired these later years, and I don't trust you, my sweet
kinsman! And shoot fast, as some one's coming."
For both had heard the rattle of hoofs in the road outside, as some
horseman came racing up to the door.
"Name it, then," cried Deveril, and shot the coin, spinning, upward.
"Heads!" Timber-Wolf named it. "Always heads. My motto there, Kid!"
The silver dollar, with such zest had it been pitched upward, struck
the ceiling and dropped to the floor, rolling. It rolled half across
the room, both men springing after it, stooping to watch and know how
fate decided matters between them. And in the end there was no decision
at all. For the coin rolled half-way into a crack between the boards
and stood thus, on edge, neither heads nor tails.
"Flip her again," growled Bruce Standing, deep in his throat. "And step
lively!"
Already the horse's hoofs, as its rider plucked at the reins, were
sliding outside. Deveril caught up the coin and tossed it again. And
this time, true to his word, and not trusting the other, Bruce Standing
called before the silver dollar struck the floor:
"Tails!"
And as the silver dollar struck and rolled and stopped, and at last lay
flat, and the two stooped over it so close that almost the black hair
of one and the reddish hair of the other brushed, they saw that it was
heads. And that Timber-Wolf, repudiating his motto, "Always heads!" had
lost three thousand dollars. And at the instant their intruder burst in
upon them from the road.
Here, after his own strange fashion, came Billy Winch, Timber-Wolf's
one-legged retainer. An able-bodied man and agile had been Billy Winch
all of his hard life until, after a horse had fallen on him, the doctor
had cut his leg off above the knee. "You'll go on crutches the rest
of your life," they told him that day. And Billy Winch, weak and pale
and sick and haggard-eyed, muttered at them: "You're a pack of damn
liars! I'll cut my throat before I'll be a crutch-man." And he had kept
his oath. Seldom did he stir save on the back of his horse. And when
needs must that he go horseless some few steps, he went "like a man,
one-leg style, hopping!" Now, hopping on his one foot so that, with his
pinched, weazened face and small bright eyes, he resembled some uncouth
bird, he bounced into the room.
"I got word for you, Bruce Standing!" he cried excitedly.
"Clear out, you fool...."
"I won't clear out! This is the real thing. Listen: A man, and it
was a man paid by Young Gallup, has just went down the road with a
double-barrel shotgun, and the dirty skunk has shot your horse, good
old Sunlight ... dead!" By now Billy Winch was whimpering; tears,
whether of rage or grief, filled his bright eyes and streamed down
his face. And all the while, to maintain his balance, he was hopping
unsteadily about, his outflung hand groping for the wall.
And now at last Timber-Wolf's anger, a devastating, all-engulfing
rage which mastered him utterly, was unleashed. And with its release
came inevitably that one condition of which he was so terribly
ashamed. He cried out aloud, in a great, roaring voice ... and in
the fierce grip of his wrath his utterance was so affected that his
speech came enunciated in the most incongruous of fashions. For it was
Timber-Wolf's burning mortification that he, the strongest man of these
mountains, when in the clutch of his mightiest passions ... _lisped_
like an affected school-girl!
"Thunlight dead!" he stormed. "You thay that to me? Yeth? Then, by God,
juth ath thure as I live, I'll...."
He cut himself short; his face, instantly red with rage, grew redder
with shame. He snapped his great jaws shut, and across the room Deveril
heard the grinding of his teeth. He swerved about, charging toward the
door, which gave entrance to the room where Gallup was.
But a far more critical moment than Timber-Wolf knew was ticking in the
clock of his life. In the hall stood the girl, Lynette. She had heard
all of these words of Billy Winch, and she had heard Bruce Standing's
bellowed rejoinder. And she, already taut-nerved and keyed up, what
with fatigue and a strenuous night, was so struck by the absurdity of
a strong man lisping his passionate utterance, that she broke out into
uncontrollable laughter. And when Lynette Brooke's laughter caught her
unawares, it rang out as clearly as the chiming of silver bells. Now,
with nerves quivering, she was almost hysterical....
Timber-Wolf came to as dead a halt as though it had been a bullet
instead of the mockery of a girl's laughter which cut into his heart.
For only mockery he made of it, he who upon this one point, as upon no
other, was so sensitive. And to have a human female laugh at him!
His rage threatened to choke him. But now, even as he had forgotten
his lost bet with Babe Deveril, so did he forget a dead horse and Young
Gallup. The entire violence of his anger was deflected, turned upon a
woman who had eavesdropped upon his ignominy and then assailed him with
the mockery of her mirth. He who held all womankind in such high scorn,
to be now a woman's laughing-stock! He, Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf!
He snatched at the hall door, and under his attack one of the ancient
hinges broke, and the door, flung back, leaned crazily against the
wall. And all the while, though he kept his teeth so hard set that his
jaws bulged with the strain, he was muttering curses in his throat. He
burst into the dim hallway, his brain on fire.
She heard him coming. More than that, and before, it seemed to her that
her instinct told her that he would come, bearing down upon her like a
hurricane, in such violence as would stamp her into the earth. She had
not meant to laugh at him; she did not want to laugh. And yet now all
that she could do was clap her hands over her mouth and run before him
as a blown leaf races before the storm. She sped down the hall, plunged
into her room, slammed the door after her.
... And in the hallway she heard the pounding of his heavy boots.
Already he was at her door. Before she could shoot the bolt, he had
gripped the knob. When he flung his weight against the panel, it flew
back, and under the impact she was thrown backward, and would have
fallen had it not been that she brought up against her bed. Here she
half fell, but was erect before he had stormed across the threshold.
"You...."
Why had she run from him? She was not afraid of him and she was not
afraid of anything on earth. Or, at least, making a sort of religion
out of it, that was the thing which she had always told herself. Just
at hand, on the little table by the open window, was her revolver. And
she could shoot and shoot true to the mark. She had told Babe Deveril
that she could take care of herself. She stood, rigid and defiant, and
in her heart unafraid.
On a bracketed shelf over her bed was a kerosene lamp which she had
left burning when she had gone out. She could see the working of his
lips. And he saw her.
Now those who knew Timber-Wolf best knew this about him--that he had
no use for womankind; that he held all of the female of the human race
to be weaklings and worse, leeches upon the strength of man, mere
outwardly glossed tricks of a scheming nature; things contemptible.
And at this moment, surely, Timber-Wolf was in no mood to revise for
the better his sweeping and deep-based opinion. But now, despite all
trumped-up reasonings, no matter how sincere, his first clear view of
this girl gave him pause.
She was superb. Physically, if not otherwise. For the first thing, her
hair snared him. Strong men are always caught by films; a big brute
of a man who may break his triumphant way through iron bands grows
powerless under a frail wisp of a frail woman's hair. In the hall
she had held her hat in her hands; her hair, loosely upgathered and
insecurely and hastily confined, had tumbled all about her face as she
bolted into her room. He saw that first of all. And then he saw her
eyes. At the moment, already in her room with the door slammed shut
behind him and his back against it, he looked, glowering, into her
eyes. And he found them at once soft and still amazingly unafraid;
those daring eyes of Lynette Brooke, daughter of a dancing-girl and of
the dare-all miner, Brooke. Unafraid, though he who might have choked
the life out of her between finger and thumb, turned his furious face
upon her.
He paid her tribute with a flash of his shining blue eyes. That was
for the physical beauty of her; that said, "Outwardly, girl, you are
superb!" Yet it remained that, his one weakness shaming him, she had
laughed at him. For the first time in his life a girl had laughed at
him....
She saw the sudden changing fires in his eyes and stepped closer to the
table on which lay that small, high-powered implement which puts the
weak on a level with the strong....
"By God, girl...."
There came a sudden sharp rapping at the door against which his
broad back leaned. There was Babe Deveril, who had lunged after him.
Timber-Wolf, growling savagely, flung himself about, for the second
ignoring the girl and facing the door. Deveril, just without, heard
the bolt shot home. And then he heard the second, the sinister sound.
A revolver shot, muffled by the four walls of a room. And he heard
Timber-Wolf, whose back had been turned to Lynette Brooke and the
gun upon the table, curse deep down in his throat, and heard almost
simultaneously the scraping of the heavy boots and the crashing fall
of the big body. Deveril shook fiercely at the door. Then he turned
and ran back down the hall, meaning to go through the room he had just
quitted and on through so as to come to Lynette's room by the rear.
But in the sitting-room Billy Winch, teetering on his one foot, grasped
him by the arm, demanding to know what had happened. Deveril savagely
shook him off, and Winch, raising the echoes with a shrilling voice,
toppled over and fell. But little time had been wasted, and yet, before
Deveril could free himself and run on, Lynette Brooke ran in upon him.
Her eyes were wild and staring; in her hand was her revolver, so lately
fired that the last wisp of smoke had not cleared from the barrel.
"Babe Deveril," she gasped. "They are after me!"
It was Sheriff Taggart who was after her. He was almost at her heels,
shouting:
"Stop! In the name of the law! You are under arrest for killing Bruce
Standing...."
Babe Deveril carried no weapon upon him. And he saw Taggart's pistols
dragging at his belt, the heavy forty-fives which, as sheriff, he was
entitled to carry openly. Taggart's hands were almost upon her.
Deveril did the one thing. He caught at the gun in Lynette's hand
and wrenched it free, and, having no time for accurate aim, did not
fire, but hurled the revolver itself, with all of his might, full into
Taggart's face. And Taggart, as though a thunderbolt had struck him,
went down, with a steel barrel driven against his skull, near the
temple, and lay a crumpled, still heap.
"The house is full of Taggart's friends!" Deveril cried sharply,
warning her and, at the same time, thinking for himself.
But already she was running again. She ran out into the road; but there
the brisk-burning bonfires made night into day. She dodged back into
the shadow cast by the corner of the house, and ran about to the rear.
Deveril hesitated only an instant; men were already rushing in from the
room where they had been drinking. He followed her through the door,
and here again he paused. Men were already stooping over the sheriff;
he heard one cry out the single word, "Dead!" His brain caught fire.
The girl had killed Timber Wolf; he had killed Jim Taggart. He and she
were fugitives. He followed her again into the shadows, running to the
back of the house.
And as he ran one thing angered him: He had won three thousand dollars
from Bruce Standing, and that three thousand dollars was at this moment
in Standing's pocket. And being Babe Deveril, who dared at least as far
as most men dare, he meant to have what fortune allowed him.
And so, when he came to an open and lighted window, and looked in and
saw the sprawling body of Timber-Wolf, Babe Deveril unhesitatingly
threw his leg over the sill and went in. In his judgment Standing was
as good as dead, shot in the back. Well, that was no affair of his,
and certainly he was not the man to grieve. Let "Serve him right" be
his epitaph. Deveril, in a feverish haste, began to feel in the fallen
man's pockets.
He found the bank-notes and stuffed them into his own pocket. At the
window, as he turned back to it, while he heard men hammering at the
locked door, he saw Lynette Brooke's white face. She had been watching
him. Yet even that, in the present need for haste, made no impression.
He slipped through, hearing a discordant shouting of many voices.
"We are in for it now," he panted. "Run!"
He caught her hand, and, holding it tight, the two raced into the
darkness under the pines.