The Coyote Part 34

"Joe, you said something about takin' something from the desert if I left it. You're right. But it can't be, Joe. This thing has killed my chances!"

The gun seemed to leap from its holster into his hand at his hip of its own accord. The old miner's brows lifted in astonishment at the draw.

"If I was you I wouldn't be much scared who I met on the way down to the Mallory place if I didn't meet too many of 'em at once," he said with a smile.

"I--I couldn't wear it--there," Rathburn faltered.

"Well, leave it hangin' on a handy peg, boy," said the old man cheerfully.

Rathburn jammed the gun back into its holster and walked around to his horse. He led the animal down to drink and then returned and saddled.

"You goin' on to-night?" asked Price casually.

"I'm takin' a ride," Rathburn confessed.

"You ain't takin' my advice at the same time, are you?" asked Price, pretending to be greatly concerned.

Rathburn mounted and looked down upon him in the faint light of the stars.

"Joe Price, you're a wise old desert rat, an' I'm a young fool," he said with a twinkle in his gray eyes. "If Bob Long happens this way give him my regards an' tell him they got the reward notices over in California all right, for I saw 'em stuck up over there. So long."

The old miner called out after him and watched him ride down the canon and disappear in the shadows. Nor was he the only watcher; for, high on the ridge above, another man touched his horse with his spurs and started down the west side of the range, as Rathburn vanished.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A NIGHT SUMMONS

In two hours Rathburn came to a fence about a small ranch. Cattle were grazing on the spa.r.s.e feed within the inclosure, and he saw a clump of trees marking the site of a house.

He rode around the fence until he came to a gate. There was a light shining from two of the windows of the house. He pa.s.sed through the gate, and, as he approached the house from the side, he saw two figures on the porch. He halted in the shelter of the trees, and, as one of the figures crossed the beam of light which shone out the door, he saw that it was a man. He obtained a fleeting look at the man's face. He was comparatively young, not bad looking, with blue eyes and a small, close-cropped, sandy mustache.

Rathburn scratched his head in an effort to place the man. He seemed vaguely familiar. Rathburn was sure he had seen him somewhere. But he gave up the futile effort to identify him when he saw that the other figure on the porch was that of a girl.

Dismounting, he led his horse around to the rear and put him in a corral near the barn. He surmised that it was about ten o'clock. As he walked toward the front of the house, again he heard the sputtering of a small motor car; then he saw the path of light from its headlights go streaking across the desert in the direction of the town to southward. The front door closed, and all was still.

Rathburn hesitated for several moments, then he stamped up the porch steps and knocked at the door. It was opened by a girl. She held a lighted lamp in her hand. When she saw Rathburn standing, hat in hand, before her, her dark eyes widened, and she nearly dropped the lamp. He stepped forward quickly and took it from her.

"Roger!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "You--here?"

"I'm here, Laura," he said quietly. "I'm home on a--a visit."

"I heard you were back," she faltered. "Mr. Doane--that is--a gentleman from town told me he had heard you were back. But----"

She scanned his face closely and peered beyond him into the shadows with visible concern.

"Roger, come in quickly," she invited, stepping back from the door.

With a faint smile he entered and closed the door after him. He put the lamp down on the table in what was evidently the sitting room of the small house. He looked about him with the air of one who sees familiar surroundings, but is embarra.s.sed by them.

"Some one been tellin' you the details of my arrival?" he asked with an effort to appear casual.

"I heard you were in some trouble, Roger." The girl continued to stare at him with a queer expression in her fine eyes--part sorrow, part concern, part gladness.

"I'm not a stranger to trouble these days, Laura," he said soberly.

There was a sob in the girl's throat, but she recovered herself at once.

"Have you eaten?" she asked quickly.

"Up at Joe Price's place," he replied. "All fed and chipper."

There was not much confidence in his tone or manner. As the girl lowered her gaze, he looked at her hungrily; his eyes feasted on the coils of dark hair, her long, black lashes, the curve of her cheek and her delicate color, the full, ruby lips, and the small, quivering chin. She was in the throes of a strong emotion.

"I'm sorry, Laura, if--you didn't want me to come," he said unsteadily.

"Oh, Roger! Of course we want you to come. It's been so long since we saw you. And you've--you've gone through so much."

She raised her eyes, and the expression which he saw in their depths caused him to look away and to bite his lips.

"There's a lot of it I wish I could undo, Laura; an' there's a lot more of it I couldn't help, an' maybe some I--I--wasn't----" He paused. He couldn't bring himself to say anything in extenuation of himself and his acts in the presence of this girl. It might sound as if he were playing for her sympathy, he thought to himself.

"Roger, I know you haven't done all the things I've heard about," she said bravely. "And there's always a chance. You're a man. You can find a way out. If the trails seem all twisted and tangled, you can use a compa.s.s--your own conscience, Roger. You still have that."

"How did you happen to mention the trails bein' all mixed up like that?" he asked curiously.

"Why--I don't know. Isn't that the way it seems?"

Rathburn looked away with a frown. "You come near hittin' the nail on the head, Laura."

"Oh, then you _are_ beginning to think!" she said eagerly.

"I've done nothing but think for months," Rathburn confessed.

She looked at him searchingly. Then her eyes dropped to the black b.u.t.t of the gun in the holster strapped to his right thigh. She shuddered slightly.

"You came from the west, Roger?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied shortly. "From where there's water an' timber an'

flowers an' gra.s.s--but they had my number there, just the same as they've got it here. I'm a marked man, Laura Mallory."

She leaned upon the table with one hand; the other she held upon her breast.

"Are--are they--after you, Roger?" she asked in a low, anxious tone.