Claim Number One Part 28

"Dr. Slavens? Why, he's on his own homestead, which he filed upon regularly. I can't see what you mean by saying it belongs to you."

"I mean that he stole the description of that land at the point of a gun, that's what I mean. It belongs to me; I paid money for it; and I'm here to take possession."

"You've got your information wrong," she denied indignantly. "Dr.

Slavens didn't steal the description. More than that, he could make it pretty uncomfortable for certain people if he should bring charges of a.s.sault and intended murder against them, Mr. Jerry Boyle!"

"Oh, cut out that high-handshake stuff, Miss Agnes Horton-Gates, or Gates-Horton, and come down to bra.s.s tacks! The time was when you could walk up and down over me like a piece of hall carpet, and I'd lie there and smile. That day's gone by. I've got wool on me now like a bellwether, and I'm s.h.a.ggy at the flanks like a wolf. I can be as mean as a wolf, too, when the time comes. You can't walk up and down over me any more!"

"n.o.body wants to walk up and down over you!" she protested. "But if you want to put Dr. Slavens off that homestead, go and do it. You'll not draw me into any of your schemes and murderous plots, and you'll find Dr. Slavens very well able to take care of himself, too!"

"Oh, sure he can!" scoffed Boyle. "You didn't seem to think so the time you turned Comanche inside out hunting him, when he was layin' drunk under a tent. I don't know what kind of a yarn he put up when he came back to you, but I've got the goods on that quack, I'll give you to understand!"

Boyle was dropping his polish, which was only a superficial coating at the best. In the bone he was a cowboy, belonging to the type of those who, during the rustlers' war, hired themselves out at five dollars a day, and five dollars a head for every man they could kill. Boyle himself had been a stripling in those days, and the roughness of his training among a tribe of as desperate and unwashed villains as ever disgraced the earth underlay his fair exterior, like collar-welts on a horse which has been long at pasture.

"I'm not under obligations to keep anybody's secrets in this country when it comes to that," Boyle reminded her.

"It couldn't be expected of you," she sighed.

"You're close to that feller," he pursued, "and he's as soft as cheese on you. All right; pool your troubles and go on off together for all I care, but before you turn another wheel you'll put the crowbar under that man that'll lift him off of that land; savvy? Well, that's what you'll do!"

"You can spread it all up and down the river that I'm living here under an a.s.sumed name, and you may tell them anything else--all that is true--that you think you ought to tell, just as soon as you want to begin," she said, rising and moving away from him in scorn. "I'll not help you; I couldn't help you if I would."

Boyle got up, his face in a scowl, and as she retreated toward her tent, followed her in his peggy, forward-tilting cowboy walk.

"Say," he hailed, unveiling at once all the rudeness of his character, "come back here a minute and take your medicine!"

She paused while he came up.

"Jerry," said Agnes gently, turning upon him eyes full of sadness and lost hope, "get on your horse and go away. Don't force me to think worse of you than I have thought. Go away, Jerry; go away!"

Boyle's face was flushed, and his naturally pop-eyed expression was greatly aggravated by his anger. It seemed that his eyes were straining to leap out, and had forced themselves forward until the whites showed beyond the lids.

"Yes, that Slavens is one of these men that'd eat hot rocks for the woman he loves," he sneered. "Well, it's up to him to show how far he'll go for you."

"It's unworthy of even you, Jerry, to talk like that," she reproved. "As far as I know, I am nothing more to Dr. Slavens than any other friend.

If you want his claim, why don't you go down there and buy it, as you were ready to buy it from Peterson if you could have filed him on it?"

"Because I can get it cheaper," said Boyle. "I'll not give him ten cents for it. It's your job to go and tell him that I want him to go over to Meander and pay up on that land, and I'll furnish the money for it, but before he pays he must sign a relinquishment to me."

"I'll not do it!" she declared.

"If you won't lead, I'll have to try spurs, and I don't like to do that, Agnes, for the sake of old days."

"Forget the old days."

"I'll go you," said he.

"There's nothing that you can tell these people about me that will lower me much in their estimation. None of them, except Smith, knows me very well, anyhow. I don't care so much for their opinion, for I'm not here to please them."

Boyle placed his hand on her shoulder and looked gravely into her face.

"But if I was to show proof to the land commissioner that you'd got possession of a homestead here through fraud and perjury, then where would you land?" he asked.

"It isn't true!" she cried, fear rising within her and driving away the color of courage which to that moment had flown in her face.

"It is true, Agnes," he protested. "You registered under the name of Agnes Horton and made affidavit that it was your lawful name; you entered this land under the same name, and took t.i.tle to it in the preliminaries, and that's fraud and perjury, if I know anything about the definition of either term."

"Do you mean to tell me, Jerry," she faltered, "that I'd have to go to prison if Dr. Slavens wouldn't consent to save me by giving up his claim to you?"

"Well, the disgrace of it would amount to about the same, even if a jury refused to send you up," said he brutally, grinning a little over the sight of her consternation. "You'd be indicted, you see, by the Federal grand jury, and arrested by the United States marshal, and locked up.

Then you'd be tried, and your picture would be put in the papers, and the devil would be to pay all around. You'd lose your homestead anyhow, and your right to ever take another. Then where would the City of Refuge be?"

"But you wouldn't do it," she appealed, placing her hand on his arm, looking into his face beseechingly, the sudden weight of her trouble making her look old. "You wouldn't do it, Jerry, would you?"

"Wouldn't I?" he mocked disdainfully. "Well, you watch me!"

"It's a cowardly way to use an advantage over a woman!"

"Never mind," grinned Boyle. "I'll take care of that. If that tin-horn doctor wants to toe the line and do what I say to keep you out of a Federal pen, then let him step lively. If he does it, then you can stay here in peace as long as you live, for anything I'll ever say or do.

You'll be Agnes Horton to me as long as my tongue's in workin' order, and I'll never know any more about where you came from or what pa.s.sed before in your history than Smith down there."

Agnes stood with her head drooping, as if the blackmailer's words had taken away the last shoring prop of her ambition and hope. After a while she raised her white, pained face.

"And if I refuse to draw the doctor into this to save myself?" she asked.

"Then I guess you'll have to suffer, old kid!" said he.

Boyle saw the little tremor which ran over her shoulders like a chill, and smiled when he read it as the outward signal of inward terror. He had no doubt in the world that she would lay hold of his alternative to save herself and her plans for others, as quickly as he, coward at heart, would sacrifice a friend for his own comfort or gain.

Yet Agnes had no thought in that moment of sacrificing Dr. Slavens and his prospects, which the unmasking of Boyle's hand now proved to be valuable, to save herself. There must be some other way, she thought, and a few hours to turn it in her mind, and reflect and plan, might show her the road to her deliverance. She did not doubt that the penalty for what she had done would be as heavy as Boyle threatened.

"So it's up to you, handle first," exulted Boyle, breaking her reflections. "I'll ride off down the river a little piece and go into camp, and tomorrow evening I'll come up for your answer from Slavens.

It's about twenty miles from here to his claim, and you can make it there and back easy if you'll start early in the morning. So it's all up to you, and the quicker the sooner, as the man said."

With that, Boyle rode away. According to her newly formed habit, Agnes gathered her wood and made a fire in the little stove outside her tent, for the day was wasting and the shadow of the western hills was reaching across the valley.

Life had lost its buoyancy for her in that past unprofitable hour. It lay around her now like a thing collapsed, which she lacked the warm breath to restore. Still, the evening was as serene as past evenings; the caress of the wind was as soft as any of the south's slow breathings of other days. For it is in the heart that men make and dismantle their paradises, and from the heart that the fountain springs which lends its color to every prospect that lies beyond.

Boyle's dust had not settled before Smith came by, jangling a road-sc.r.a.per behind his team. He was coming from his labor of leveling a claim, skip one, up the river. He drew up, his big red face as refulgent as the setting sun, a smile on it which dust seemed only to soften and sweat to illumine. He had a hearty word for her, noting the depression of her spirit.

After pa.s.sing the commonplaces, a ceremony which must be done with Smith whether one met him twice or twenty times a day, he waved his hand down the river in the direction that Boyle had gone.

"Feller come past here a little while ago?" he asked, knowing very well that Boyle had left but a few minutes before.

"He has just gone," she told him.

"Jerry Boyle," nodded Smith; "the Governor's son. He ain't got no use for me, and I tell you, if I had a woman around the place----"