Brand Blotters Part 8

"May I speak to you a moment, Miss Lee?" he said in a low voice.

"Of course."

The voice of Norris rose to an irritated snarl. "Tell you I've got evidence, Lee. Mebbe it's not enough to convict, but it satisfies me a-plenty that Jack Flatray's the man."

Melissy was frozen to a tense attention. Her whole mind was on what pa.s.sed between the detective and her father. Otherwise she would have noticed the swift change that transformed the tenderfoot.

The rancher answered with impatient annoyance. "You're 'way off, Norris. I don't care anything about your evidence. The idea is plumb ridiculous.

Twenty odd years I've known him. He's the best they make, a pure through and through. Not a crooked hair in his head. I've eat out of the same frying pan too often with that boy not to know what he is. You go bury those suspicions of yours immediate. There's nothing to them."

Norris grumbled objections as they moved toward the stable. Melissy drew a long breath and brought herself back to the tenderfoot.

He stood like a coiled spring, head thrust far forward from the shoulders.

The look in his black eyes was something new to her experience. For hate, pa.s.sion, caution were all mirrored there.

"You know Mr. Norris," she said quickly.

He started. "What did you say his name was?" he asked with an a.s.sumption of carelessness.

"Norris--Philip Norris. He is a cattle detective."

"Never heard of Mr. Norris before in my life," he answered, but it was observable that he still breathed deep.

She did not believe him. Some tie in their buried past bound these two men together. They must have known each other in the South years ago, and one of them at least was an enemy of the other. There might come a day when she could use this knowledge to save Jack Flatray from the punishment d.o.g.g.i.ng his heels. Melissy filed it away in her memory for future reference.

"You wanted to speak to me," she suggested.

"I'm going away."

"What for?"

"Because I'm not a hound. I can't blackmail a woman."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that you've found work here for me because I saw what you did over by Antelope Pa.s.s. We made a bargain. Oh, not in words, but a bargain just the same! You were to keep my secret because I knew yours. I release you from your part of it. Give me up if you think it is your duty. I'll not tell what I know."

"That wasn't how you talked the other day."

"No. It's how I talk now. I'm a hunted man, wanted for murder. I make you a present of the information."

"You make me a present of what I already know, Mr. Diller, alias Morse, alias Bellamy."

"You guessed it the first day?"

"Yes."

"And meant to keep quiet about it?"

"Yes, I meant to shelter you from the punishment you deserve." She added with a touch of bitter self-scorn: "I was doing what I had to do."

"You don't have to do it any longer." He looked straight at her with his head up. "And how do you know what I deserve? Who made you a judge about these facts? Grant for the sake of argument I killed him. Do you know I wasn't justified?"

His fierce boldness put her on the defense. "A man sure of his cause does not run away. The paper said this Shep Boone was shot from ambush.

Nothing could justify such a thing. When you did that----"

"I didn't. Don't believe it, Miss Lee."

"He was shot from behind, the paper said."

"Do I look like a man who would kill from ambush?"

She admitted to herself that this clear-eyed Southerner did not look like an a.s.sa.s.sin. Life in the open had made her a judge of such men as she had been accustomed to meet, but for days she had been telling herself she could no longer trust her judgment. Her best friend was a rustler. By a woman's logic it followed that since Jack Flatray was a thief this man might have committed all the crimes in the calendar.

"I don't know." Then, impulsively, "No, you don't, but you may be for all that."

"I'm not asking anything for myself. You may do as you please after I've gone. Send for Mr. Flatray and tell him if you like."

A horse cantered across the plaza toward the store. Bellamy turned quickly to go.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," the girl called after him in a low voice.

Norris swung from the saddle. "Who's our hurried friend?" he asked carelessly.

"Oh, a new rider of ours. Name of Morse." She changed the subject. "Are you--do you think you know who the rustler is?"

His cold, black eyes rested in hers. She read in them something cruel and sinister. It was as if he were walking over the grave of an enemy.

"I'm gathering evidence, a little at a time."

"Do I know him?"

"Maybe you do."

"Tell me."

He shook his head. "Wait till I've got him cinched."

"You told father," she accused.

He laughed in a hard, mirthless fashion. "That cured me. The Lee family is from Missouri. When I talk next time I'll have the goods to show."

"I know who you mean. You're making a mistake." Her voice seemed to plead with him.

"Not on your life, I ain't. But we'll talk about that when the subject is riper. There will be a showdown some day, and don't you forget it. Well, Charley is calling me. So long, Miss Three-Quarters-Past-Seventeen." He went jingling down the steps and swung to the saddle. "I'll not forget the ad, and when I find the right man I'll ce'tainly rope and bring him to you."

"The rustler?" she asked innocently.