Brand Blotters Part 55

"Yes, by G.o.d!"

"I'll never go with you--never--never!" she cried pa.s.sionately. "I'm free of the bargain. You broke faith. So shall I."

She saw his jaw clamp. "So you're going to throw me down, are you?"

Melissy stood before him, slim and straight, without yielding an inch. She was quite colorless, for he was a man with whose impulses she could not reckon. But one thing she knew. He could never take her away with him and escape. And she knew that he must know it, too.

"If you want to call it that. You tricked me into marrying you. You meant to betray me all the time. Go, while there's still a chance. I don't want your blood on my hands."

It was characteristic of him that he always wanted more what he could not get.

"Don't answer so quick, girl. Listen to me. I've got enough in that sack to start us in the cattle business in Argentina. There's more buried in the hills, if we need it. Girl, I tell you I'm going to run straight from to-day!"

She laughed scornfully. "And in the same breath you tell me how much you have stolen and are taking with you. If you were a Croesus, I wouldn't go with you." She flamed into sudden, fierce pa.s.sion. "Will you never understand that I hate and detest you?"

"You think you do, but you don't. You love me--only you won't let yourself believe it."

"There's no arguing with such colossal conceit," she retorted, with hard laughter. "It's no use to tell you that I should like to see you dead at my feet."

Swiftly he slid a revolver from its holster, and presented it to her, b.u.t.t first. "You can have your wish right easy, if you mean it. Go to it.

There's no danger. All you've got to give out is that I frightened you.

You'll be a heroine, too."

She looked at the weapon and at him, and the very thought of it made her sick. She saw the thing almost as if it were already done--the smoking revolver in her hand, and the man lying motionless before her.

"Take it away," she said, with a shudder.

"You see, you can't do it! You can't even go to the window there and shout out that Black MacQueen is with you in the house. You don't hate me at all, my dear."

"Because I won't kill you with my own hand? You reason logically."

"Then why don't you betray my presence? Why don't you call your friends in to take me?"

"I'm not sure that I won't; but if I don't, it will be for their sakes, and not for yours. They could not take you without loss of life."

"You're right there," he agreed, with a flash of his tigerish ferocity.

"They couldn't take me alive at all, and I reckon before I checked in a few of them would."

CHAPTER XIV

BLACK MACQUEEN CASHES HIS CHECKS

It was part of his supreme audacity to trust her. While he was changing his dusty, travel-stained clothes for some that belonged to her brother she prepared a meal for him downstairs. A dozen times the impulse was on her to fly into the street and call out that Black MacQueen was in the house, but always she restrained herself. He was going to leave the country within a few hours. Better let him go without bloodshed.

He came down to his dinner fresh from a bath and a shave, wearing a new tweed suit, which fitted him a trifle loosely, but was not unbecoming to his trim, lithe figure. No commercial traveler at a familiar hotel could have been more jauntily and blithely at home.

"So you didn't run away!" He grinned.

"Not yet. I'm going to later. I owe you a meal, and I wanted to pay it first."

It was his very contempt of fear that had held her. To fool away half an hour in dressing, knowing that it was very likely she might be summoning men to kill him--to come down confident and unperturbed, possibly to meet his death--was such a piece of dare-deviltry as won reluctant admiration, in spite of her detestation of him. Even if she did not give him up, his situation was precarious in the extreme. All the trains were being watched; and in spite of this he had to walk boldly to the station, buy a ticket, and pa.s.s himself off for an ordinary traveler.

Both knew that the chances were against him, but he gave no sign of concern or anxiety. Never had Melissy seen him so full of spirits. The situation would have depressed most men; him it merely stimulated. The excitement of it ran like wine through his blood. Driven from his hills, with every man's hand against him, with the avenues of escape apparently closed, he was in his glory. He would play his cards out to the end, without whining, no matter how the game might go.

Melissy washed the dishes, in order that the cook might not know that she had had a guest for luncheon. The two returned to the living room. It was his whim to have her play for him; and she was glad to comply, because it interfered with his wooing. She was no longer greatly afraid of him, for she knew that he was on his good behavior to win her liking.

Fortune favored her. For some time they had heard the cook moving about in the kitchen. Once she had poked her head in to know whether her young mistress would like the cherry pie for dinner.

"I didn't know yez had company, Miss 'Lissie," she had apologized.

"This gentleman will stay to dinner," Melissy had announced.

At luncheon Melissy had not eaten with him; but at dinner it was necessary, on account of the cook, that she sit down, too. The meal had scarce begun when Kate came beaming in.

"Shure, Miss 'Lissie, there's another young gentleman at the door. It's Mr. Bellamy. I tould him to come right in. He's washing his face first."

Melissy rose, white as a sheet. "All right, Kate."

But as soon as the cook had left the room she turned to the outlaw. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

Little whimsical imps of mischief shone in his eyes. "Have him in and introduce him to your husband, my dear."

"You must go--quick. If I don't get rid of him, you'll be able to slip out the back way and get to the depot. He doesn't know you are here."

MacQueen sat back and gave her his easy, reckless smile. "Guess again.

Bellamy can't drive me out."

She caught her hands together. "Oh, go--go! There will be trouble. You wouldn't kill him before my very eyes!"

"Not unless he makes the first play. It's up to him." He laughed with the very delight of it. "I'd as lief settle my account with him right now.

He's meddled too much in my affairs."

She broke out in a cry of distress: "You wouldn't! I've treated you fair.

I could have betrayed you, and I didn't. Aren't you going to play square with me?"

He nodded. "All right. Show him in. He won't know me except as Lieutenant O'Connor. It was too dark last night to see my face."

Bellamy came into the room.

"How's Jack?" Melissy asked quickly as she caught his hand.

"Good as new. And you?"

"All right."