Judith of Blue Lake Ranch Part 28

"Mos' likely down to the Jailbird," said Billy, Young. "That's where he hangs out lately."

Lee turned and went out, Carson at his heels, all eyes following him.

In his heart was a blazing, searing rage. And that rage was not for Quinnion alone. He thought of Judith as he had seen her that very night, a graceful, gray-eyed slip of a girl, the sweetest little maid in all of the world known to him--and of how he, brutal in the surge of love for her, had swept her into his arms, crushed her to him, forced upon her laughing lips the kiss of his own.

"My G.o.d," he said within himself, "I was mad. It would be a good thing if I got Quinnion to-night--and he got me. Two of a kind," he told himself sneeringly.

As he made his way down the ill-lighted street, his hat drawn over his eyes now. Bud Lee for a moment lost sight of the rows of rude shanties, the drowsing saddle-ponies, the street-lamps, and saw only the vision of a girl. A girl clean and pure, a girl for a man to kneel down to in worship, a girl who, as he had seen her last, was a fairylike creature born of music and soft laughter and starlight, a maid indescribably sweet. In the harshness of the mood which gripped him, she seemed to him superlatively adorable; the softness of her eyes at the moment before he had kissed her haunted him. As he strode on seeking Quinnion, who had spoken evil of her, he carried her with him in his heart.

The horrible thing was that her name had already been bandied about from a ruffian's lips. Lee winced at that even as he had winced at the remembrance of having been brutally rough with her himself. But what was past was past; Quinnion had talked and must talk no more.

"He'll start something the minute he sees you," cautioned Carson, his own revolver loose in the belt under his coat, his hard fingers like talons gripped about the b.u.t.t. "Keep your eye peeled, Bud. Better cool off a speck before you tie into him. You're too mad, I tell you, for straight, quick shooting."

Lee made no answer. Side by side the two men went on. They had left the sidewalk and walked down the middle of the rusty, rut-gouged street. Every man they met, every figure standing in the shadows, received their quick, measuring looks.

"Most likely," suggested the cattle foreman, "by now he's got drunk an'

gone to sleep it off."

But Lee knew better than that. Quinnion wasn't the sort that got drunk. He'd drink until the alcohol stirred up all of the evil in his ugly heart; then he'd stop, always sure of his eye and his hand. It was far more likely that with a crowd of his own sort he was gambling in the card-room of the Last Chance saloon, the Jailbird saloon as "white" men called it. For there was an ill-famed hang-out at the far end of the straggling town, just at the edge of the Italian settlement, that of late had come to be frequented by such as Quinnion; men who were none too well loved by the greater part of the community, men who, like Quinnion, had served time in jail or penitentiary. Black Steve, who was both proprietor and bartender, and who looked like a low-cla.s.s Italian, though he spoke the vernacular of the country, was the G.o.d of the "dago" quarter, the friend of those who had gotten entangled with the law. Only last year he had killed his man in his own saloon, then gone clear, through the combined perjury of his crowd.

The street grew steadily gloomier, filled with shadows. In front of the Jailbird the only light came from within and made scant war on the lurking darkness without. Lee's ears were greeted with the crazy whine of an old accordion, and with men's voices lifted in laughter. He shoved the swing door open with his shoulder, Carson pushed the other half back, and the two stood on the threshold, their eyes swiftly seeking Quinnion.

As though their presence had been a command for silence, a sudden hush fell over the Jailbird. The accordion man drew out a last gasping note and turned black round eyes upon them. Black Steve, oily and perspiring behind his bar, caressed a heavy black mustache and looked at them out of cold, expressionless eyes.

The first glance had shown Lee that Quinnion was not there. At least not in the main room, but there were the card-rooms at the rear. He gave no sign of having felt the hostility of the many eyes turned upon him, but went quickly down through the room, turning neither to right nor left.

"Hol' on there," came the big booming voice of Steve. "What you fellers want, huh?"

Lee gave him no answer but strode on. Carson, at Lee's heels like a grim old dog, showed his teeth a little. Steve, striking the bar with a heavy hand, shouted in menacing tones:

"Hol' on, I say! n.o.body goin' to break in on a play that's running in my card-rooms. If you fellers want anything, you ask me."

"Go ahead, Bud," said Carson jocosely. "It's only the ol' black calf bawling same as usual."

But Lee needed no urging. He had heard voices beyond the closed door in front of him, among them a certain high-pitched, snarling, indescribably evil voice which he knew. He put his hand on the k.n.o.b and found that the door was locked. With no waste of time, he drew back a step, lifted his foot and drove his heel smashing into the lock.

Then, throwing himself forward, driving his shoulder into the door, he burst it off its hinges.

At last he had found Quinnion.

Here were half a dozen men, not playing cards, but interrupted in a quiet talk. Standing on the far side of the table was a man who was as evil a thing to see as was his voice to hear; his face twisted, drawn to the left side, the left eye a mere slit of malevolence, the uneven teeth showing in an eternal, mirthless grin, a man whose hands, when his arms were lax as now, hung almost to his knees, a man twisted morally, mentally, and physically.

Bud Lee had eyes only for this man. But suddenly Carson had seen another man, seeking to screen himself behind the great, misshapen bulk of Quinnion, and with new eagerness was crying:

"It's Shorty, Bud! He's mine!"

But Shorty was no man's yet. At his back was a window; it was closed and the shade was drawn, but to Shorty it spelled safety. Head first he went through it, tearing the green shade down, crashing through the gla.s.s, leaving discussion behind him. With a bellow of rage Carson went after him, forgetful in the instant that there was another matter on hand to-night. Shorty, consigned to Carson's care and the grain-house, had slipped away and had laughed at him. Ever since, Carson had been yearning for the chance to get his two hands on Shorty's fat throat. Before the smash and tinkle of falling gla.s.s had died away Carson, plunging as Shorty had plunged, was lost to the bulging eyes which sought to follow him, gone head first into the darkness without.

Lee kept his eyes hard on Quinnion's. He moved a little, so that the wall was at his back. His coat was unb.u.t.toned; his left hand was in his pocket, his arm holding back his coat a little on that side. The right hand was lax at his side, like Quinnion's.

He had seen the other men, though his eyes had seemed to see only one man. One of them he knew; the others he had seen. They were the sort to be found in Quinnion's company. They were the nucleus of what was spoken of as Quinnion's crowd.

"Quinnion," said Lee quietly, "you are a d.a.m.ned dirty-mouthed liar."

The words came like little slaps in the face. Of the four men still in the room with Quinnion three of them moved swiftly to one side, their eyes on their leader's face, which showed nothing of what might lie in his mind.

"I have taken the trouble," went on Lee coolly, when Quinnion, leering back at him, made no reply, "to ride forty miles to-night for a little talk with you. You are a crook and a card-cheat. I told you that once before. You have been telling men that I am a coward and a four-flusher. For that I am going to run you out of town to-night. Or kill you."

Then Quinnion laughed at him.

"Just for that?" he jeered. "Or because I've been tellin' a true story about you an'----"

He didn't get her name out. Perhaps he hadn't expected to. His eyes had been watchful. Now, as he threw himself to one side, he whipped out his gun, dropping to one knee, his body partly concealed by the table. At the same second Bud Lee's right hand, no longer lax, sped to the revolver gripped under the coat at his left arm-pit.

It was a situation by no means new to the four walls of the Jailbird nor to the men concerned. It was a two-man fight, with as yet no call for the four friends of Quinnion to interfere. It would take the spit and snarl of a revolver, the flash of flame, the acrid smell of burning-powder to switch their sympathetic watching into actual partic.i.p.ation. No new situation certainly for Chris Quinnion who took quick stock of the table with its heavy top and screened his body with it; no new situation for Steve, the big bartender who was at the shattered door almost as Bud Lee sent it rocking drunkenly.

Since a fight like this in a small room may end in three seconds and yet remain a fight for men to talk of at street corners for many a day thereafter, it is surely a struggle baffling adequate description. For while you speak of it, it is done; while a dock ticks, two guns may carry hot lead, and cut in two two threads of life.

Quinnion was down and shooting, with but ten steps or less between him and the man whom he sought to kill; Bud Lee was standing, tall and straight, back to wall, his first bullet ripping into the boards of the table, sending a flying splinter to stick in Quinnion's face, close to a squinting, slitted eye; and as the two guns spoke like one, a third from the open barroom shattered the lamp swinging from the ceiling between Lee and Quinnion. Steve, the bartender, had taken a hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Quinnion was down and shooting, with but ten steps . . .

between him and the man whom he sought to kill.]

The card-room was plunged in darkness so thick that Lee's frowning eyes could no longer make out Quinnion's head above the table, so black that to Quinnion's eyes the tall form of Lee against the wall was lost in shadow.

XX

THE FIGHT AT THE JAILBIRD

As Steve fired his shot into the lamp, Bud Lee understood just what would be Steve's next play; the bartender had given his friends brief respite from the deadly fire of the Blue Lake man, and now would turn his second shot through the flimsy wall itself on the man standing there. Lee did not hesitate now, but with one leap was across the room, avoiding the table, seeking to come to close quarters with Quinnion and have the thing over and done with. In the bitterness still gnawing at his heart, he told himself again that it would be no calamity to the world if the two men who had insulted Judith Sanford went down together.

Again Steve fired. His bullet ripped into the wall, tearing a hole through the part.i.tion where a brief instant ago Lee had stood. The light out in the barroom was extinguished. In the cardroom it was utterly, impenetrably dark now, only a vague square of lesser darkness telling where was the window through which Shorty had fled.

A red flare of flame from where Quinnion crouched, and Lee stood very still, refusing the temptation to fire back. For Quinnion's bullet had sped wide of the mark, striking the wall a full yard to Lee's left.

Quinnion's eyes had not found him, would not find him soon if he stood quite motionless. The fight was still to be made, Quinnion's friends would be taking a hand now, Steve had already joined issue. There were six of them against him and with one shot fired from his heavy Colt there were but five left. No shot to be wasted.

A little creaking of a floorboard, a vague, misty blur almost at his side, and still Lee saved his fire. Quickly he lifted the big revolver, held welded to a grip of steel, throwing it high above his head and striking downward. There was almost no sound; just the thudding blow as the thick barrel struck a heavy mat of hair, and with no outcry a man went down to lie still. At the same moment the dim square of the window showed a form slipping through; one man was seeking safety from a quarrel not his own. And as he went, there came again a soft thudding blow and Carson's dry voice outside, saying calmly:

"Shorty got away, but you don't, pardner. Give 'em h.e.l.l, Bud. I'm in the play again."

"Two men down," grunted Lee to himself with grim satisfaction. "And old Carson back on the job. Only two to our one now."

The form in the window crumpled and under Carson's quick hands was jerked out. Suddenly it was very still in the little room. Steve did not fire a third time; Quinnion held his fire. For Lee had made no answer and they were taking heavy chances with every shot now, chances of shooting the wrong man. Each of the four watchful men in the narrow apartment breathed softly.

Once more Lee lifted his gun above his head. As he held it thus, he put out his left hand gently, inch by inch, gropingly. Extended full length, it touched nothing. Slowly he moved it in a semi-circle, the gun in his right hand always ready to come crashing down. His fingers touched the wall, then moving back a.s.sured him that no one was within reach. Lifting a foot slowly, he took one cautious step forward, toward the spot where he had last seen Quinnion. Again his arm, circling through the darkness, sought to locate for him one of the men who must be very near him now. Suddenly it brushed a man's shoulder.

There was a sharp, muttered exclamation, and again a flare of red flame as this man fired. But he had misjudged Bud Lee's position by a few inches, the bullet cut through Lee's coat, and Lee's clubbed revolver fell unerringly, smashing into the man's forehead. There was a low moan, a revolver clattered to the floor, a body fell heavily.