Sheila had been dreaming of a world in which there was nothing but rain and mud and clouds and reckless-eyed individuals who conversed in irritating drawls when a sharp crash of thunder awakened her. During her sleep she had turned her face to the wall, and when her eyes opened the first thing that her gaze rested on was the small window above her head. She regarded it for some time, following with her eyes the erratic streams that trickled down the glass, stretching out wearily, listening to the wind. It was cold and bleak outside and she had much to be thankful for.
She was glad that she had not allowed the mysterious inhabitant of the cabin to sleep out in his tarpaulin, for the howling of the wind brought weird thoughts into her mind; she reflected upon her helplessness and it was extremely satisfying to know that within ten feet of her lay a man whose two big revolvers—even though she feared them—seemed to insure protection. It was odd, she told herself, that she should place so much confidence in Dakota, and her presence in the cabin with him was certainly a breach of propriety which—were her friends in the East to hear of it—would arouse much comment—entirely unfavorable to her. Yes, it was odd, yet considering Dakota, she was not in the least disturbed. So far his conduct toward her had been that of the perfect gentleman, and in spite of the recklessness that gleamed in his eyes whenever he looked at her she was certain that he would continue to be a gentleman.
It was restful to lie and listen to the rain splashing on the roof and against the window, but sleep, for some unaccountable reason, seemed to grow farther from her—the recollection of events during the past few hours left no room in her thoughts for sleep. Turning, after a while, to seek a more comfortable position, she saw Dakota sitting at the table, on the side opposite her, watching her intently.
“Can’t sleep, eh?” he said, when he saw her looking at him. “Storm bother you?”
“I think it was the thunder that awakened me,” she returned. “Thunder always does. Evidently it disturbs you too.”
“I haven’t been asleep,” he said in a curt tone.
He continued to watch her with a quiet, appraising gaze. It was evident that he had been thinking of her when she had turned to look at him. She flushed with embarrassment over the thought that while she had been asleep he must have been considering her, and yet, looking closely at him now, she decided that his expression was frankly impersonal.
He glanced at his watch. “You’ve been asleep two hours,” he said. “I’ve been watching you—and envying you.”
“Envying me? Why? Are you troubled with insomnia?”
He laughed. “Nothing so serious as that. It’s just thoughts.”
“Pleasant ones, of course.”
“You might call them pleasant. I’ve been thinking of you.”
Sheila found no reply to make to this, but blushed again.
“Thinking of you,” repeated Dakota. “Of the chance you took in coming out here alone—in coming into my shack. We’re twenty miles from town here—twenty miles from the Double R—the nearest ranch. It isn’t likely that a soul will pass here for a month. Suppose——”
“We won’t ‘suppose,’ if you please,” said Sheila. Her face had grown slowly pale, but there was a confident smile on her lips as she looked at him.
“No?” he said, watching her steadily. “Why? Isn’t it quite possible that you could have fallen in with a sort of man——”
“As it happens, I did not,” interrupted Sheila.
“How do you know?”
Sheila’s gaze met his unwaveringly. “Because you are the man,” she said slowly.
She thought she saw a glint of pleasure in his eyes, but was not quite certain, for his expression changed instantly.
“Fate, or Providence—or whatever you are pleased to call the power that shuffles us flesh and blood mannikins around—has a way of putting us all in the right places. I expect that’s one of the reasons why you didn’t fall in with the sort of man I was going to tell you about,” said Dakota.
“I don’t see what Fate has to do—” began Sheila, wondering at his serious tone.
“Odd, isn’t it?” he drawled.
“What is odd?”
“That you don’t see. But lots of people don’t see. They’re chucked and shoved around like men on a chess board, and though they’re always interested they don’t usually know what it’s all about. Just as well too—usually.”
“I don’t see——”
He smiled mysteriously. “Did I say that I expected you to see?” he said. “There isn’t anything personal in this, aside from the fact that I was trying to show you that some one was foolish in sending you out here alone. Some day you’ll look back on your visit here and then you’ll understand.”
He got up and walked to the door, opening it and standing there looking out into the darkness. Sheila watched him, puzzled by his mysterious manner, though not in the least afraid of him. Several times while he stood at the door he turned and looked at her and presently, when a gust of wind rushed in and Sheila shivered, he abruptly closed the door, barred it, and strode to the fireplace, throwing a fresh log into it. For a time he stood silently in front of the fire, his figure casting a long, gaunt shadow at Sheila’s feet, his gaze on her, grim, somber lines in his face. Presently he cleared his throat.
“How old are you?” he said shortly.
“Twenty-two.”
“And you’ve lived East all your life. Lived well, too, I suppose—plenty of money, luxuries, happiness?”
He caught her nod and continued, his lips curling a little. “Your father too, I reckon—has he been happy?”
“I think so.”
“That’s odd.” He had spoken more to himself than to Sheila and he looked at her with narrowed eyes when she answered.
“What is odd? That my father should be happy—that I should?”
“Odd that anyone who is happy in one place should want to leave that place and go to another. Maybe the place he went to wouldn’t be just right for him. What makes people want to move around like that?”
“Perhaps you could answer that yourself,” suggested Sheila. “I am sure that you haven’t lived here in this part of the country all your life.”
“How do you know that?” His gaze was quizzical and mocking.
“I don’t know. But you haven’t.”
“Well,” he said, “we’ll say I haven’t. But I wasn’t happy where I came from and I came here looking for happiness—and something else. That I didn’t find what I was looking for isn’t the question—mostly none of us find the things we’re looking for. But if I had been happy where I was I wouldn’t have come here. You say your father has been happy there; that he’s got plenty of money and all that. Then why should he want to live here?”
“I believe I told you that he is coming here for his health.”
His eyes lighted savagely. But Sheila did not catch their expression for at that moment she was looking at his shadow on the floor. How long, how grotesque, it seemed, and forbidding—like its owner.
“So he’s got everything he wants but his health. What made him lose that?”
“How should I know?”
“Just lost it, I reckon,” said Dakota subtly. “Cares and Worry?”
“I presume. His health has been failing for about ten years.”
Sheila was looking straight at Dakota now and she saw his face whiten, his lips harden. And when he spoke again there was a chill in his voice and a distinct pause between his words.
“Ten years,” he said. “That’s a long time, isn’t it? A long time for a man who has been losing his health. And yet——” There was a mirthless smile on Dakota’s face—“ten years is a longer time for a man in good health who hasn’t been happy. Couldn’t your father have doctored—gone abroad—to recover his health? Or was his a mental sickness?”
“Mental, I think. He worried quite a little.”
Dakota turned from her, but not quickly enough to conceal the light of savage joy that flashed suddenly into his eyes.
“Why!” exclaimed Sheila, voicing her surprise at the startling change in his manner; “that seems to please you!”
“It does.” He laughed oddly. “It pleases me to find that I’m to have a neighbor who is afflicted with the sort of sickness that has been bothering me for—for a good many years.”
There was a silence, during which Sheila yawned and Dakota stood motionless, looking straight ahead.
“You like your father, I reckon?” came his voice presently, as his gaze went to her again.
“Of course.” She looked up at him in surprise. “Why shouldn’t I like him?”
“Of course you like him. Mostly children like their fathers.”
“Children!” She glared scornfully at him. “I am twenty-two! I told you that before!”
“So you did,” he returned, unruffled. “When is he coming out here?”
“In a month—a month from to-day.” She regarded him with a sudden, new interest. “You are betraying a great deal of curiosity,” she accused. “Why?”
“Why,” he answered slowly, “I reckon that isn’t odd, is it? He’s going to be my neighbor, isn’t he?”
“Oh!” she said with emphasis of mockery which equalled his. “And you are gossiping about your neighbor even before he comes.”
“Like a woman,” he said with a smile.
“An impertinent one,” she retorted.
“Your father,” he said in accents of sarcasm, ignoring the jibe, “seems to think a heap of you—sending you all the way out here alone.”
“I came against his wish; he wanted me to wait and come with him.”
Her defense of her parent seemed to amuse him. He smiled mysteriously. “Then he likes you?”
“Is that strange? He hasn’t any one else—no relative. I am the only one.”
“You’re the only one.” He repeated her words slowly, regarding her narrowly. “And he likes you. I reckon he’d be hurt quite a little if you had fallen in with the sort of man I was going to tell you about.”
“Naturally.” Sheila was tapping with her booted foot on his shadow on the floor and did not look at him.
“It’s a curious thing,” he said slowly, after an interval, “that a man who has got a treasure grows careless of it in time. It’s natural, too. But I reckon fate has something to do with it. Ten chances to one if nothing happens to you your father will consider himself lucky. But suppose you had happened to fall in with a different man than me—we’ll say, for instance, a man who had a grudge against your father—and that man didn’t have that uncommon quality called ‘mercy.’ What then? Ten chances to one your father would say it was fate that had led you to him.”
“I think,” she said scornfully, “that you are talking silly! In the first place, I don’t believe my father thinks that I am a treasure, though he likes me very much. In the second place, if he does think that I am a treasure, he is very much mistaken, for I am not—I am a woman and quite able to take care of myself. You have exhibited a wonderful curiosity over my father and me, and though it has all been mystifying and entertaining, I don’t purpose to talk to you all night.”
“I didn’t waken you,” he mocked.
Sheila swung around on the bunk, her back to him. “You are keeping me awake,” she retorted.
“Well, good night then,” he laughed, “Miss Sheila.”
“Good night, Mr.—Mr. Dakota,” she returned.
Sheila did not hear him again. Her thoughts dwelt for a little time on him and his mysterious manner, then they strayed. They returned presently and she concentrated her attention on the rain; she could hear the soft, steady patter of it on the roof; she listened to it trickling from the eaves and striking the glass in the window above her head. Gradually the soft patter seemed to draw farther away, became faint, and more faint, and finally she heard it no more.
With the thermometer at one hundred and five it was not to be expected that there would be much movement in Lazette. As a matter of fact, there was little movement anywhere. On the plains, which began at the edge of town, there was no movement, no life except when a lizard, seeking a retreat from the blistering sun, removed itself to a deeper shade under the leaves of the sage-brush, or a prairie-dog, popping its head above the surface of the sand, took a lightning survey of its surroundings, and apparently dissatisfied with the outlook whisked back into the bowels of the earth.
There was no wind, no motion; the little whirlwinds of dust that arose settled quickly down, the desultory breezes which had caused them departing as mysteriously as they had come. In the blighting heat the country lay, dead, spreading to the infinite horizons; in the sky no speck floated against the dome of blue. More desolate than a derelict on the calm surface of the trackless ocean Lazette lay, its huddled buildings dingy with the dust of a continuing dry season, squatting in their dismal lonesomeness in the shimmering, blinding sun.
In a strip of shade under the eaves of the station sat the station agent, gazing drowsily from under the wide brim of his hat at the two glistening lines of steel that stretched into the interminable distance. Some cowponies, hitched to rails in front of the saloons and the stores, stood with drooping heads, tormented by myriad flies; a wagon or two, minus horses, occupied a space in front of a blacksmith shop.
In the Red Dog saloon some punchers on a holiday played cards at various tables, quietly drinking. Behind the rough bar Pete Moulin, the proprietor stood, talking to his bartender, Blacky.
“So that jasper’s back again,” commented the proprietor.
“Which?” The bartender followed the proprietor’s gaze, which was on a man seated at a card table, his profile toward them, playing cards with several other men. The bartender’s face showed perplexity.
Moulin laughed. “I forgot you ain’t been here that long,” he said. “That was before your time. That fellow settin’ sideways to us is Texas Blanca.”
“What’s he callin’ himself ‘Texas’ for?” queried the bartender. “He looks more like a greaser.”
“Breed, I reckon,” offered the proprietor. “Claims to have punched cows in Texas before he come here.”
“What’s he allowin’ to be now?”
“Nobody knows. Used to own the Star—Dakota’s brand. Sold out to Dakota five years ago. Country got too hot for him an’ he had to pull his freight.”
“Rustler?”
“You’ve said something. He’s been suspected of it. But nobody’s talkin’ very loud about it.”
“Not safe?”
“Not safe. He’s lightning with a six. Got his nerve to come back here, though.”
“How’s that?”
“Ain’t you heard about it? I thought everybody’d heard about that deal. Blanca sold Dakota the Star. Then he pulled his freight immediate. A week or so later Duncan, of the Double R, rides up to Dakota’s shack with a bunch of Double R boys an’ accuses Dakota of rustlin’ Double R cattle. Duncan had found twenty Double R calves runnin’ with the Star cattle which had been marked secret. Blanca had run his iron on them an’ sold them to Dakota for Star stock. Dakota showed Duncan his bill of sale, all regular, an’ of course Duncan couldn’t blame him. But there was some hard words passed between Duncan an’ Dakota, an’ Dakota ain’t allowin’ they’re particular friends since.
“Dakota had to give up the calves, sure enough, an’ he did. But sore! Dakota was sure some disturbed in his mind. He didn’t show it much, bein’ one of them quiet kind, but he says to me one day not long after Duncan had got the calves back: ‘I’ve been stung, Pete,’ he says, soft an’ even like; ‘I’ve been stung proper, by that damned oiler. Not that I’m carin’ for the money end of it; Duncan findin’ them calves with my stock has damaged my reputation.’ Then he laffed—one of them little short laffs which he gets off sometimes when things don’t just suit him—the way he’s laffed a couple of times when someone’s tried to run a cold lead proposition in on him. He fair freezes my blood when he gets it off.
“Well, he says to me: ‘Mebbe I’ll be runnin’ in with Blanca one of these days.’ An’ that’s all he ever says about it. Likely he expected Blanca to come back. An’ sure enough he has. Reckon he thinks that mebbe Dakota didn’t get wise to the calf deal.”
“In his place,” said Blacky, eyeing Blanca furtively, “I’d be makin’ some inquiries. Dakota ain’t no man to trifle with.”
“Trifle!” Moulin’s voice was pregnant with awed admiration. “I reckon there ain’t no one who knows Dakota’s goin’ to trifle with him—he’s discouraged that long ago. Square, too, square as they make ’em.”
“The Lord knows the country needs square men,” observed Blacky.
He caught a sign from a man seated at a table and went over to him with a bottle and a glass. While Blacky was engaged in this task the door opened and Dakota came in.
Moulin’s admiration and friendship for Dakota might have impelled him to warn Dakota of the presence of Blanca, and he did hold up a covert finger, but Dakota at that moment was looking in another direction and did not observe the signal.
He continued to approach the bar and Blacky, having a leisure moment, came forward and stood ready to serve him. A short nod of greeting passed between the three, and Blacky placed a bottle on the bar and reached for a glass. Dakota made a negative sign with his head—short and resolute.
“I’m in for supplies,” he laughed, “but not that.”
“Not drinkin’?” queried Moulin.
“I’m pure as the driven snow,” drawled Dakota.
“How long has that been goin’ on?” Moulin’s grin was skeptical.
“A month.”
Moulin looked searchingly at Dakota, saw that he was in earnest, and suddenly reached a hand over the bar.
“Shake!” he said. “I hate to knock my own business, an’ you’ve been a pretty good customer, but if you mean it, it’s the most sensible thing you ever done. Of course you didn’t hit it regular, but there’s been times when I’ve thought that if I could have three or four customers like you I’d retire in a year an’ spend the rest of my life countin’ my dust!” He was suddenly serious, catching Dakota’s gaze and winking expressively.
“Friend of yourn here,” he said.
Dakota took a flashing glance at the men at the card tables and Moulin saw his lips straighten and harden. But in the next instant he was smiling gravely at the proprietor.
“Thanks, Pete,” he said quietly. “But you’re some reckless with the English language when you’re calling him my friend. Maybe he’ll be proving that he didn’t mean to skin me on that deal.”
He smiled again and then left the bar and strode toward Blanca. The latter continued his card playing, apparently unaware of Dakota’s approach, but at the sound of his former victim’s voice he turned and looked up slowly, his face wearing a bland smile.
It was plain to Moulin that Blanca had known all along of Dakota’s presence in the saloon—perhaps he had seen him enter. The other card players ceased playing and leaned back in their chairs, watching, for some of them knew something of the calf deal, and there was that in Dakota’s greeting to Blanca which warned them of impending trouble.
“Blanca,” said Dakota quietly, “you can pay for those calves now.”
It pleased Blanca to dissemble. But it was plain to Moulin—as it must have been plain to everybody who watched Blanca—that a shadow crossed his face at Dakota’s words. Evidently he had entertained a hope that his duplicity had not been discovered.
“Calves?” he said. “What calves, my frien’?” He dropped his cards to the table and turned his chair around, leaning far back in it and hooking his right thumb in his cartridge belt, just above the holster of his pistol. “I theenk it mus’ be mistak’.”
“Yes,” returned Dakota, a slow, grimly humorous smile reaching his face, “it was a mistake. You made it, Blanca. Duncan found it out. Duncan took the calves—they belonged to him. You’re going to pay for them.”
“I pay for heem?” The bland smile on Blanca’s face had slowly faded with the realization that his victim was not to be further misled by him. In place of the smile his face now wore an expression of sneering contempt, and his black eyes had taken on a watchful glitter. He spoke slowly: “I pay for no calves, my frien’.”
“You’ll pay,” said Dakota, an ominously quiet drawl in his voice, “or——”
“Or what?” Blanca showed his white teeth in a tigerish smirk.
“This town ain’t big enough for both of us,” said Dakota, his eyes cold and alert as they watched Blanca’s hand at his cartridge belt. “One of us will leave it by sundown. I reckon that’s all.”
He deliberately turned his back on Blanca and walked to the door, stepping down into the street. Blanca looked after him, sneering. An instant later Blanca turned and smiled at his companions at the table.
“It ain’t my funeral,” said one of the card players, “but if I was in your place I’d begin to think that me stayin’ here was crowdin’ the population of this town by one.”
Blanca’s teeth gleamed. “My frien’,” he said insinuatingly, “it’s your deal.” His smile grew. “Thees is a nize country,” he continued. “I like it ver’ much. I come back here to stay. Dakota—hees got the Star too cheap.” He tapped his gun holster significantly. “To-night Dakota hees go somewhere else. To-morrow who takes the Star? You?” He pointed to each of the card players in turn. “You?” he questioned. “You take it?” He smiled at their negative signs. “Well, then, Blanca take it. Peste! Dakota give himself till sundown!”
The six-o’clock was an hour and thirty minutes late. For two hours Sheila Langford had been on the station platform awaiting its coming. For a full half hour she had stood at one corner of the platform straining her eyes to watch a thin skein of smoke that trailed off down the horizon, but which told her that the train was coming. It crawled slowly—like a huge serpent—over the wilderness of space, growing always larger, steaming its way through the golden sunshine of the afternoon, and after a time, with a grinding of brakes and the shrill hiss of escaping air, it drew alongside the station platform.
A brakeman descended, the conductor strode stiffly to the telegrapher’s window, two trunks came out of the baggage car, and a tall man of fifty alighted and was folded into Sheila’s welcoming arms. For a moment the two stood thus, while the passengers smiled sympathetically. Then the man held Sheila off at arm’s length and looked searchingly at her.
“Crying?” he said. “What a welcome!”
“Oh, daddy!” said Sheila. In this moment she was very near to telling him what had happened to her on the day of her arrival at Lazette, but she felt that it was impossible with him looking at her; she could not at a blow cast a shadow over the joy of his first day in the country where, henceforth, he was to make his home. And so she stood sobbing softly on his shoulder while he, aware of his inability to cope with anything so mysterious as a woman’s tears, caressed her gently and waited patiently for her to regain her composure.
“Then nothing happened to you after all,” he laughed, patting her cheeks. “Nothing, in spite of my croaking.”
“Nothing,” she answered. The opportunity was gone now; she was committed irrevocably to her secret.
“You like it here? Duncan has made himself agreeable?”
“It is a beautiful country, though a little lonesome after—after Albany. I miss my friends, of course. But Duncan’s sister has done her best, and I have been able to get along.”
The engine bell clanged and they stood side by side as the train pulled slowly away from the platform. Langford solemnly waved a farewell to it.
“This is the moment for which I have been looking for months,” he said, with what, it seemed to Sheila, was almost a sigh of relief. He turned to her with a smile. “I will look after the baggage,” he said, and leaving her he approached the station agent and together they examined the trunks which had come out of the baggage car.
Sheila watched him while he engaged in this task. His face seemed a trifle drawn; he had aged much during the month that she had been separated from him. The lines of his face had grown deeper; he seemed, now that she saw him at a distance, to be care-worn—tired. She had heard people call him a hard man; she knew that business associates had complained of what they were pleased to call his “sharp methods”; it had even been hinted that his “methods” were irregular.
It made no difference to her, however, what people thought of him, or what they said of him, he had been a kind and indulgent parent to her and she supposed that in business it was everybody’s business to look sharply after their own interests. For there were jealous people everywhere; envy stalks rampant through the world; failure cavils at mediocrity, mediocrity sneers at genius. And Sheila had always considered her father a genius, and the carping of those over whom her father had ridden roughshod had always sounded in her ears like tributes.
As quite unconsciously we are prone to place the interests of self above considerations for the comfort and the convenience of others, so Sheila had grown to judge her father through the medium of his treatment of her. Her own father—who had died during her infancy—could not have treated her better than had Langford. Since her mother’s death some years before, Langford had been both father and mother to her, and her affection for him had flourished in the sunshine of his. No matter what other people thought, she was satisfied with him.
As a matter of fact David Dowd Langford allowed no one—not even Sheila—to look into his soul. What emotions slumbered beneath the mask of his habitual imperturbability no one save Langford himself knew. During all his days he had successfully fought against betraying his emotions and now, at the age of fifty, there was nothing of his character revealed in his face except sternness. If addicted to sharp practice in business no one would be likely to suspect it, not even his victim. Could one have looked steadily into his eyes one might find there a certain gleam to warn one of trickery, only one would not be able to look steadily into them, for the reason that they would not allow you. They were shifty, crafty eyes that took one’s measure when one least expected them to do so.
Over the motive which had moved her father to retire from business while still in his prime Sheila did not speculate. Nor had she speculated when he had bought the Double R ranch and announced his intention to spend the remainder of his days on it. She supposed that he had grown tired of the unceasing bustle and activity of city life, as had she, and longed for something different, and she had been quite as eager as he to take up her residence here. This had been the limit of her conjecturing.
He had told her when she left Albany that he would follow her in a month. And therefore, in a month to the day, knowing his habit of punctuality, Sheila had come to Lazette for him, having been driven over from the Double R by one of the cowboys.
She saw the station agent now, beckoning to the driver of the wagon, and she went over to the edge of the station platform and watched while the trunks were tumbled into the wagon.
The driver was grumbling good naturedly to Langford.
“That darned six-o’clock train is always late,” he was saying. “It’s a quarter to eight now an’ the sun is goin’ down. If that train had been on time we could have made part of the trip in the daylight.”
The day had indeed gone. Sheila looked toward the mountains and saw that great long shadows were lengthening from their bases; the lower half of the sun had sunk behind a distant peak; the quiet colors of the sunset were streaking the sky and glowing over the plains.
The trunks were in; the station agent held the horses by the bridles, quieting them; the driver took up the reins; Sheila was helped to the seat by her father, he jumped in himself, and they were off down the street, toward a dim trail that led up a slope that began at the edge of town and melted into space.
The town seemed deserted. Sheila saw a man standing near the front door of a saloon, his hands on his hips. He did not appear interested in either the wagon or its occupants; his gaze roved up and down the street and he nervously fingered his cartridge belt. He was a brown-skinned man, almost olive, Sheila thought as her gaze rested on him, attired after the manner of the country, with leathern chaps, felt hat, boots, spurs, neckerchief.
“Why, it is sundown already!” Sheila heard her father say. “What a sudden change! A moment ago the light was perfect!”
A subconscious sense only permitted Sheila to hear her father’s voice, for her thoughts and eyes were just then riveted on another man who had come out of the door of another saloon a little way down the street. She recognized the man as Dakota and exclaimed sharply.
She felt her father turn; heard the driver declare, “It’s comin’ off,” though she had not the slightest idea of his meaning. Then she realized that he had halted the horses; saw that he had turned in his seat and was watching something to the rear of them intently.
“We’re out of range,” she heard him say, speaking to her father.
“What’s wrong?” This was her father’s voice.
“Dakota an’ Blanca are havin’ a run-in,” announced the driver. “Dakota’s give Blanca till sundown to get out of town. It’s sundown now an’ Blanca ain’t pulled his freight, an’ it’s likely that hell will be a-poppin’ sorta sudden.”
Sheila cowered in her seat, half afraid to look at Dakota—who was walking slowly toward the man who still stood in front of the saloon—though in spite of her fears and misgivings the fascination of the scene held her gaze steadily on the chief actors.
Out of the corners of her eyes she could see that far down the street men were congregated; they stood in doorways, at convenient corners, their eyes directed toward Dakota and the other man. In the sepulchral calm which had fallen there came to Sheila’s ears sounds that in another time she would not have noticed. Somewhere a door slammed; there came to her ears the barking of a dog, the neigh of a horse—sharply the sounds smote the quiet atmosphere, they seemed odd to the point of unreality.
However, the sounds did not long distract her attention from the chief actors in the scene which was being worked out in front of her; the noises died away and she gave her entire attention to the men. She saw Dakota reach a point about thirty feet from the man in front of the saloon—Blanca. As Dakota continued to approach, Sheila observed an evil smile flash suddenly to Blanca’s face; saw a glint of metal in the faint light; heard the crash of his revolver; shuddered at the flame spurt. She expected to see Dakota fall—hoped that he might. Instead, she saw him smile—in much the fashion in which he had smiled that night in the cabin when he had threatened to shoot the parson if she did not consent to marry him. And then his hand dropped swiftly to the butt of the pistol at his right hip.
Sheila’s eyes closed; she swayed and felt her father’s arm come out and grasp her to keep her from falling. But she was not going to fall; she had merely closed her eyes to blot out the scene which she could not turn from. She held her breath in an agony of suspense, and it seemed an age until she heard a crashing report—and then another. Then silence.
Unable longer to resist looking, Sheila opened her eyes. She saw Dakota walk forward and stand over Blanca, looking down at him, his pistol still in hand. Blanca was face down in the dust of the street, and as Dakota stood over him Sheila saw the half-breed’s body move convulsively and then become still. Dakota sheathed his weapon and, without looking toward the wagon in which Sheila sat, turned and strode unconcernedly down the street. A man came out of the door of the saloon in front of which Blanca’s body lay, looking down at it curiously. Other men were running toward the spot; there were shouts, oaths.
For the first time in her life Sheila had seen a man killed—murdered—and there came to her a recollection of Dakota’s words that night in the cabin: “Have you ever seen a man die?” She had surmised from his manner that night that he would not hesitate to kill the parson, and now she knew that her sacrifice had not been made in vain. A sob shook her, the world reeled, blurred, and she covered her face with her hands.
“Oh!” she said in a strained, hoarse voice. “Oh! The brute!”
“Hey!” From a great distance the driver’s voice seemed to come. “Hey! What’s that? Well, mebbe. But I reckon Blanca won’t rustle any more cattle.” “God!” he added in an awed voice; “both of them hit him!”
Blanca was dead then, there could be no doubt of that. Sheila felt herself swaying and tried to grasp the end of the seat to steady herself. She heard her father’s voice raised in alarm, felt his arm come out again and grasp her, and then darkness settled around her.
When she recovered consciousness her father’s arms were still around her and the buckboard was in motion. Dusk had come; above her countless stars flickered in the deep blue of the sky.
“I reckon she’s plum shocked,” she heard the driver say.
“I don’t wonder,” returned Langford, and Sheila felt a shiver run over him. “Great guns!” Sheila wondered at the tone he used. “That man is a marvel with a pistol! Did you notice how cool he took it?”
“Cool!” The driver laughed. “If you get acquainted with Dakota you’ll find out that he’s cool. He’s an iceberg, that’s what he is!”
“They’ll arrest him, I suppose?” queried Langford.
“Arrest him! What for? Didn’t he give Blanca his chance? That’s why I’m tellin’ you he’s cool!”
It was past two o’clock when the buckboard pulled up at the Double R corral gates and Langford helped Sheila down. She was still pale and trembling and did not remain downstairs to witness her father’s introduction to Duncan’s sister, but went immediately to her room. Sleep was far from her, however, for she kept dwelling over and over on the odd fortune which had killed Blanca and allowed Dakota to live, when the latter’s death would have brought to an end the distasteful relationship which his freakish impulse had forced upon her.
She remembered Dakota’s words in the cabin. Was Fate indeed running this game—if game it might be called?
Sheila departed from the quicksand crossing nursing her wrath against the man who had rescued her, feeling bitterly vindictive against him, yet aware that the Dakota who had saved her life was not the Dakota whom she had feared during her adventure with him in his cabin on the night of her arrival in the country. He had changed, and though she assured herself that she despised him more than ever, she found a grim amusement in the recollection of his manner immediately following the rescue, and in a review of the verbal battle, in which she had been badly worsted.
His glances had had in them the quality of inward mirth and satisfaction which is most irritating, and behind his pretended remorse she could see a pleasure over her dilemma which made her yearn to inflict punishment upon him that would cause him to ask for mercy. His demeanor had said plainly that if she wished to have the marriage set aside all well and good—he would offer no objection. But neither would he take the initiative. Decidedly, it was a matter in which she should consult her own desires.
It was late in the afternoon when she rode up to the Double R corral gates and was met there by her father and Duncan. Langford had been worried, he said, and was much concerned over her appearance. In the presence of Duncan Sheila told him the story of her danger and subsequent rescue by Dakota and she saw his eyes narrow with a strange light.
“Dakota!” he said. “Isn’t that the chap who shot that half-breed over in Lazette the day I came?”
To Sheila’s nod he ejaculated: “He’s a trump!”
“He is a brute!” As the words escaped her lips—she had not meant to utter them—Sheila caught a glint in Duncan’s eyes which told her that she had echoed the latter’s sentiments, and she felt almost like retracting the charge. She had to bite her lips to resist the impulse.
“A brute, eh?” laughed Langford. “It strikes me that I wouldn’t so characterize a man who had saved my life. The chances are that after saving you he didn’t seem delighted enough, or he didn’t smile to suit you, or——”
“He ain’t so awful much of a man,” remarked Duncan disparagingly.
Langford turned and looked at Duncan with a comprehending smile. “Evidently you owe Dakota nothing, my dear Duncan,” he said.
The latter’s face darkened, and with Sheila listening he told the story of the calf deal, which had indirectly brought about the death of Blanca.
“For a long time we had suspected Texas Blanca of rustling,” said Duncan, “but we couldn’t catch him with the goods. Five years ago, after the spring round-up, I branded a bunch of calves with a secret mark, and then we rode sign on Blanca.
“We had him then, for the calves disappeared and some of the boys found some of them in Blanca’s corral, but we delayed, hoping he would run off more, and while we were waiting he sold out to Dakota. We didn’t know that at the time; didn’t find it out until we went over to take Blanca and found Dakota living in his cabin. He had a bill of sale from Blanca all right, showing that he’d bought the calves from him. It looked regular, but we had our doubts, and Dakota and me came pretty near having a run-in. If the boys hadn’t interfered——”
He hesitated and looked at Sheila, and as her gaze met his steadily his eyes wavered and a slow red came into his face, for the recollection of what had actually occurred at the meeting between him and Dakota was not pleasant, and since that day Duncan had many times heard the word “Yellow” spoken in connection with his name—which meant that he lacked courage.
“So he wasn’t a rustler, after all?” said Sheila pleasantly. For some reason which she could not entirely explain, she suspected that Duncan had left many things out of his story of his clash with Dakota.
“Well, no,” admitted Duncan grudgingly.
Sheila was surprised at the satisfaction she felt over this admission. Perhaps Duncan read her face as she had read his, for he frowned.
“Him and Blanca framed up—making believe that Blanca had sold him the Star brand,” he said venomously.
“I don’t believe it!” Sheila’s eyes met Duncan’s and the latter’s wavered. She was not certain which gave her the thrill she felt—her defense of Dakota or Duncan’s bitter rage over the exhibition of that defense.
“He doesn’t appear to me to be the sort of man who would steal cows,” she said with a smile which made Duncan’s teeth show. “Although,” she continued significantly, “it does seem that he is the sort of man I would not care to trifle with—if I were a man. You told me yourself, if you remember, that you were not taking any chances with him. And now you accuse him. If I were you,” she warned, “I would be more careful—I would keep from saying things which I could not prove.”
“Meaning that I’m afraid of him, I reckon?” sneered Duncan.
Sheila looked at him, her eyes alight with mischief. That day on the edge of the butte overlooking the river, when Duncan had talked about Dakota, she had detected in his manner an inclination to belittle the latter; several times since then she had heard him speak venomously of him, and she had suspected that all was not smooth between them. And now since Duncan had related the story of the calf incident she was certain that the relations between the two men were strained to the point of open rupture. Duncan had bothered her, had annoyed her with his attentions, had adopted toward her an air of easy familiarity, which she had deeply resented, and she yearned to humiliate him deeply.
“Afraid?” She appeared to hesitate. “Well, no,” she said, surveying him with an appraising eye in which the mischief was partly concealed, “I do not believe that you are afraid. Perhaps you are merely careful where he is concerned. But I am certain that even if you were afraid of him you would not refuse to take his pony back. I promised to send it back, you know.”
A deep red suddenly suffused Duncan’s face. A sharp, savage gleam in his eyes—which Sheila met with a disarming smile—convinced her that he was aware of her object. She saw also that he did not intend to allow her to force him to perform the service.
He bowed and regarded her with a shallow smile.
“I will have one of the boys take the pony over to him the first thing in the morning,” he said.
Sheila smiled sweetly. “Please don’t bother,” she said. “I wouldn’t think of allowing one of the men to take the pony back. Perhaps I shall decide to ride over that way myself. I should not care to have you meet Dakota if you are afraid of him.”
Her rippling laugh caused the red in Duncan’s face to deepen, but she gave him no time to reply, for directly she had spoken she turned and walked toward the ranchhouse. Both Duncan and Langford watched her until she had vanished, and then Langford turned to Duncan.
“What on earth have you done to her?” he questioned.
But Duncan was savagely pulling the saddle from Dakota’s pony and did not answer.
Sheila really had no expectation of prevailing upon Duncan to return Dakota’s horse, and had she anticipated that the manager would accept her challenge she would not have given it, for after thinking over the incident of her rescue she had come to the conclusion that she had not treated Dakota fairly, and by personally taking his horse to him she would have an opportunity to proffer her tardy thanks for his service. She did not revert to the subject of the animal’s return during the evening meal, however, nor after it when she and her father and Duncan sat on the gallery of the ranchhouse enjoying the cool of the night breezes.
After breakfast on the following morning she was standing near the windmill, watching the long arms travel lazily in their wide circles, when she saw Duncan riding away from the ranchhouse, leading Dakota’s pony. She started toward the corral gates, intending to call to him to return, but thought better of the impulse and hailed him tauntingly instead:
“Please tell him to accept my thanks,” she said, and Duncan turned his head, bowed mockingly, and continued on his way.
Half an hour after the departure of Duncan Sheila pressed a loafing puncher into service and directed him to rope a gentle pony for her. After the puncher had secured a suitable appearing animal and had placed a saddle and bridle on it, she compelled him to ride it several times around the confines of the pasture to make certain that it would not “buck.” Then she mounted and rode up the river.
Duncan was not particularly pleased over his errand, and many times while he rode the trail toward Dakota’s cabin his lips moved from his teeth in a snarl. Following the incident of the theft of the calves by Blanca, Duncan had taken pains to insinuate publicly that Dakota’s purchase of the Star from the half-breed had been a clever ruse to avert suspicion, intimating that a partnership existed between Dakota and Blanca. The shooting of Blanca by Dakota, however, had exploded this charge, and until now Duncan had been very careful to avoid a meeting with the man whom he had maligned.
During the night he had given much thought to the circumstance which was sending him to meet his enemy. He had a suspicion that Sheila had purposely taunted him with cowardice—that in all probability Dakota himself had suggested the plan in order to force a meeting with him. This thought suggested another. Sheila’s defense of Dakota seemed to indicate that a certain intimacy existed between them. He considered this carefully, and with a throb of jealously concluded that Dakota’s action in saving Sheila’s life would very likely pave the way for a closer acquaintance.
Certainly, in spite of Sheila’s remark about Dakota being a “brute,” she had betrayed evidence of admiration for the man. In that case her veiled allusions to his own fear of meeting Dakota were very likely founded on something which Dakota had told her, and certainly anything which Dakota might have said about him would not be complimentary. Therefore his rage against both Sheila and his enemy was bitter when he finally rode up to the door of the latter’s cabin.
There was hope in his heart that Dakota might prove to be absent, and when, after calling once and receiving no answer, he dismounted and hitched Dakota’s pony to a rail of the corral fence, there was a smile of satisfaction on his face.
He took plenty of time to hitch the pony; he even lingered at the corral bars, leaning on them to watch several steers which were inside the enclosure. He found time, too, in spite of his fear of his enemy, to sneer over the evidences of prosperity which were on every hand. He was congratulating himself on his good fortune in reaching Dakota’s cabin during a time when the latter was absent, when he heard a slight sound behind him. He turned rapidly, to see Dakota standing in the doorway of the cabin, watching him with cold, level eyes, one of his heavy six-shooters in hand.
Duncan’s face went slowly pale. He did not speak at once and when he did he was surprised at his hoarseness.
“I’ve brought your cayuse back,” he said finally.
“So I see,” returned Dakota. His eyes glinted with a cold humor, though they were still regarding Duncan with an alertness which the other could not mistake.
“So I see,” repeated Dakota. His slow drawl was in evidence again. “I don’t recollect, though, that I sent word to have you bring him back.”
“I wasn’t tickled to death over the job,” returned Duncan.
Now that his first surprise was over and Dakota had betrayed no sign of resenting his visit, Duncan felt easier. There had been a slight sneer in his voice when he answered.
“That isn’t surprising,” returned Dakota. “There never was a time when you were tickled a heap to stick your nose into my affairs.” His smile froze Duncan.
“I ain’t looking for trouble,” said the latter, with a perfect knowledge of Dakota’s peculiar expression.
“Then why did you come over here? I reckon there wasn’t anyone else to send my horse over by?” said Dakota, his voice coming with a truculent snap.
Duncan flushed. “Sheila Langford sent me,” he admitted reluctantly.
Dakota’s eyes lighted with incredulity. “I reckon you’re a liar,” he said with cold emphasis.
Duncan’s gaze went to the pistol in Dakota’s hand and his lips curled. He knew that he was perfectly safe so long as he made no hostile move, for in spite of his derogatory remarks about the man he was aware that he never used his weapons without provocation.
Therefore he forced a smile. “You ain’t running no Blanca deal on me,” he said. “Calling me a liar ain’t going to get no rise out of me. But she sent me, just the same. I reckon, liking you as I do, that I ought to be glad she gave me the chance to come over and see you, but I ain’t. We was gassing about you and she told me I was scared to bring your cayuse back.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I reckon I’ve proved that I ain’t any scared.”