Paradise Bend Part 18

Laguerre bore out the statement of Doubleday. He returned while the men were saddling in the morning. He did not appear in the least degree wearied. Hurriedly changing his saddle to a fresh horse, he rode away with Loudon.

"By gar!" exclaimed Laguerre. "I have de fine tam. I dance, I dreenk de w'iskey, un I play de pokair wit' Pete O'Leary un two odder men un I tak' deir money. I ween feefty dollar. By gar! I am glad I go to town, me."

"Yuh sh.o.r.e ought to be," said Loudon. "Fifty dollars. That's right good hearin'."

"Pete O'Leary she wan' for know 'bout you," continued Laguerre.

"Pete O'Leary asked about me! What did he say, huh?"

"Oh, she not say eet plain. She walk een de watair. But I have been de scout; I have leeve wit Enjun; I know w'at ees een ees head. She talk 'bout Lanky quittin' de Flyin' M, un she wan' for know have Scotty hired new man. She say she see Scotty ride out wit' you, un she know you name. But I not say much. I tell Pete O'Leary to ask Scotty 'bout hees business, un I not say eef you work for de Flyin' M or not. For I tink mabbeso Pete O'Leary she ees not frien' to you."

"Well, he ain't strictly hostyle anyway," said Loudon, and he forthwith told Laguerre of his meeting with Pete O'Leary and of the latter's strange actions.

"Dat ees varree fonny," commented Laguerre. "Pete O'Leary she was expectin' de frien' or de message mabbee. But dat ees not so fonny as hees askin' 'bout you so moch. She worry 'bout you, un dat ees fonny.

Why she worry eef she hones' man? I tell you, my frien', I do not trus' dat Pete O'Leary. I would watch heem. I would watch heem varree sharp."

"Oh, I don't believe it means anythin'," doubted Loudon. "But I'll keep an eye skinned for him."

"You better, my frien', or mabbeso some tam she skeen you."

A week later Mackenzie returned. That evening, after supper, Doubleday told Loudon that Scotty wanted to see him. Mackenzie, chair tilted, feet propped on the table, his hands clasped behind his head, was staring up at the ceiling when Loudon entered the office. The chair descended on four legs with a crash, and the ancient arose briskly.

"Stranger," said Mackenzie, his blue eyes no longer frosty, "I was mistaken. Yo're a gent an' a white man, an' I ain't holdin' out nothin'. Shake."

Loudon grinned and shook hands. He was satisfied with the other's apology.

"That's all right," said the puncher. "I knowed yuh mistook me for somebody else. But I'd sh.o.r.e admire to know, if it ain't private, who yuh thought I was."

"I don't mind tellin' yuh. I ain't ever talked about it much. Dunno why. No reason why I shouldn't. Sit down, Loudon, an' I'll tell yuh.

When I first seen yuh there in Main Street that 88 brand on yore hoss made me suspicious.

"Sam Blakely o' the 88 an' me ain't friends. We had a run-in some eight years ago over at Virginia City, an' I kind o' left Sam the worse for wear. I heard later how Sam was yellin' 'round that he'd get even.

Knowin' Sam, I believed it. An' when I seen you ridin' a 88 hoss, I says to myself, 'Here's Sam done gone an' hired a party to do the gettin' even.' When yuh wanted to ride for me, I was sh.o.r.e of it.

"So when you got down to fix yore cinches I expected to be plugged the next second, an' I throwed down on yuh. Yore askin' me to send yore hoss an' saddle to Johnny Ramsay was what stopped me. I knowed if Johnny was a friend o' yores you was all right. So I sent yuh on, an'

I trailed yuh clear to the ranch. If you'd turned back I'd 'a' downed yuh. But yuh didn't turn back.

"Well, after I seen yuh talkin' to Doubleday---- Sh.o.r.e; yuh know that little hill about half-a-mile south? I was on top of it with a pair of field gla.s.ses--after I seen yuh talkin' to Doubleday, I moseyed south again to the Cross-in-a-box."

"Two hundred miles!" exclaimed Loudon.

"About that," said Mackenzie, easily, quite as if a four-hundred-mile ride in ten days were an afternoon jaunt. "Yuh see, I wanted to talk to Jack Richie. Didn't want to go to the Bar S if I could help it. Me an' Saltoun never did pull together. He thinks I'm a fool, an' I know he's crazy.

"Well, I talked with Jack, an' he explained everythin'. Said who yuh was an' how yuh'd bought yore hoss from the 88 an' how yuh'd creased Sam Blakely, an' all. That was fine work. Too bad yuh didn't down him for good. He's a varmint. Worse'n a rattler. Yuh'd ought to 'a'

plugged Marvin, too, after him tryin' to make yuh out a rustler that-away. A sport like that'll stand shootin' any day. What's the matter?"

For Loudon was amazedly staring at Mackenzie.

"Four hundred miles both ways," said the puncher, "to see whether a forty-five-dollar-a-month hand was tellin' the truth!"

"Yuh was more than a hand," rejoined Mackenzie, with a slight smile.

"Yuh was opportunity, with a big O. Yuh see, when yuh asked for a job I needed a man. I needed him bad. I was sh.o.r.e yuh was out to down me.

But when yuh said yuh knowed Johnny an' I changed my mind about droppin' yuh, it come to me, provided you was straight, that you was just the feller for me. You was sent to me, like. You was Opportunity, see?

"An' I ain't never pa.s.sed up an opportunity that I ain't been sorry.

I'm kind o' superst.i.tious thataway now, an' I'll go out o' my way to grab what I think looks like an opportunity. I knowed I couldn't rest easy till I found out somethin' about yuh. So I done it. An' I'm ---- glad I done it.

"Doubleday tells me yo're the best roper he ever seen, an' yo're a wonder with the stallions. A good man with stallions is somethin' I've wished for ever since I owned the Flyin' M. I never had him till you come. Opportunity! I guess yuh was, an' then a few. Now I don't know whether yuh care about stayin', but I sh.o.r.e hope yuh will. I'll see that yuh don't regret it."

"Sh.o.r.e I'll stay," said Loudon. "Them stallions is where I live."

"Then fifty-five a month goes for you from now on."

In this auspicious fashion began Loudon's life at the Flying M. Yet Loudon was not precisely happy. The cheerfulness induced by the whole-hearted Burrs had been but temporary. He brooded over his wrongs, and that is bad for a man. Like all men who believe themselves hard hit, he did not realize that there are a great many lonesome ladies in the world, any one of whom will make a man utterly happy.

One young woman had proved to be an arrant flirt, therefore all young women were flirts, and beauty was a snare and a delusion. So reasoned Loudon. Surrendering almost wholly to his mood, he rarely took part in the general conversation in the bunkhouse. The men wondered at his aloofness, but none essayed to draw him out. His smoldering gray eyes forbade any such familiarity. When riding the range with Laguerre, however, Loudon would emerge from his sh.e.l.l, and a strong friendship swiftly grew up between the two.

One day, nearly two weeks after Mackenzie's return from the Cross-in-a-box, Loudon was in the blacksmith shop making a set of shoes for Ranger when Pete O'Leary rode up to the doorway and peered in.

"h.e.l.lo," said O'Leary, cheerily. "How's tricks?"

"Comin' in bunches," replied Loudon, shortly, and he blew the bellows vigorously.

"That's good. Hot, ain't it? Well, I got to be weavin' along. So long."

Loudon walked to the doorway and watched O'Leary till he disappeared among the cottonwoods fringing the bank of the Dogsoldier.

"Now I'd admire to know," he wondered, "if Pete O'Leary stopped here just to ask how tricks was. He kind o' looked at yore brand, too, fellah," he added, addressing Ranger.

Thoughtfully he returned to his work. Five minutes later he whacked his knee and whistled. Comprehension had at last come to him. He marvelled that it had not come sooner.

"Now, why didn't I think o' that quicker?" he muttered. "It was that 88 brand on Ranger's hip that made Scotty suspicious. So it was that brand must 'a' made O'Leary freeze to me when I sifted into the Bend.

'Couldn't Sam come?' Sam Blakely o' the 88! An' I never seen it till just now."

The moves of an enemy are always interesting. Even more thoughtfully than before, Loudon pumped the handle of the bellows. Why was Blakely coming to Paradise Bend? To settle his score with Scotty Mackenzie?

Loudon doubted it. A newly engaged man does not, as a rule, jeopardize his future happiness by reopening old issues.

Whatever the precise nature of Blakely's purpose might be, it was dark and Machiavellian in the main. O'Leary's peculiar actions in the Three Card Saloon evinced as much.

"I don't see how it could have anythin' to do with me," puzzled Loudon.

"Sam couldn't 'a' knowed I was comin' to the Bend. I didn't know myself till just before I started. Yet here's O'Leary askin' Telescope about me an' skirmishin' over to see if I am at the Flyin' M. It sh.o.r.e is a heap mysterious."

Loudon decided to talk it over with Scotty Mackenzie.