The Delafield Affair Part 14

"No; I shouldn't think you were. But Lucy--does she know anything about it?"

He looked up in surprise. "Why, no; of course not."

Bancroft was coming through the gate, bringing Judge Banks with him; and Lucy joined them a moment later. The talk turned on the coming trial of Jose Maria Melgares, the narrow escape of Pendleton from Melgares'

bullet, and the death of Gaines as the result of his own foolhardy horse-play. They spoke of Little Jack Wilder's skill with the revolver, and Conrad reminded Bancroft of their agreement to do some target practice together.

"Let's all go out in the back yard now," Lucy exclaimed, "and Miss Dent and I will shoot too! Wouldn't you like it, Dearie? Come on! it will be such fun!"

While they were setting up the target Sheriff Tillinghurst came to speak to Judge Banks upon an official matter; and Lucy asked him to stay and help her shoot.

"You-all use my gun, Miss Lucy, and then you'll be sure to have good luck," he replied, drawing his revolver from his pocket. It was a small pearl-handled six-shooter, which the ladies admired, and the men jibed at for its daintiness.

"That's all right," he answered good-naturedly. "This gun don't stack up much beside a cannon for size, but I can pervade and pester with it a right smart heap if I want to. It's a peach of a shooter, and it don't show in my clothes. I never have anything on me but that, and I've never seen the gun play yet where I got the worst of it. You-all try it, Miss Lucy."

Lucy took the revolver, telling him that now she would be his deputy, and, with plentiful instruction from Curtis, placed herself in position and fired. She hit the bull's-eye and won much applause, until she explained that she had fired with both eyes shut and that, if she had made a good shot, it was because she couldn't help it with such a splendid gun as Mr. Tillinghurst's. Miss Dent took careful aim and, without lowering her arm, emptied the remaining chambers, making an excellent score. She, too, won a round of applause, to which she replied calmly, "Oh, I've known how to shoot for years, and when I am in practice I do fairly well."

"You two fellows shoot a match," said Tillinghurst to Bancroft and Conrad. "The judge'll be umpire, and each fellow use his own gun at thirty paces."

Louise and Lucy stood at one side, where the Sheriff and Judge Banks joined them, leaving Bancroft and Conrad to begin their match. Beneath her calm exterior Miss Dent's thoughts were in a tumult, and fierce resentment against the cattleman was rising in her heart. Had not Aleck suffered enough already? Why should he be hunted down like this when he was willing to make rest.i.tution, even after all these years? Oh, cruel!

to beat him down again, when he had won success and respect once more!

This man was a savage in his implacable desire for revenge.

Curtis raised his revolver. With both eyes open and without pausing to take aim, he sent a bullet through the bull's-eye. "Delafield won't have much chance against a man who can do that!" he exclaimed in a triumphant undertone to Bancroft.

As the test of skill went on, it developed that the banker excelled if he took time to aim accurately, while he of Socorro Springs was the superior at quick shooting.

"It's my specialty in the shooting line," said Curtis. "You'd better practise it, Aleck. It's the thing that counts most if you get into a scrimmage."

He handed his hat, a wide-brimmed, gray felt, to Judge Banks, asking him to throw it up, adding, "I'd do it myself if my left arm wasn't in dry dock." He raised his revolver as the hat left the judge's hand; there were three quick reports, and he sprang forward and caught the descending sombrero on the muzzle of his pistol. The three perforations in the crown of the hat were so close together that a silver dollar covered them.

"Bravo!" exclaimed the judge. "I don't know but two other men who can do that. Little Jack Wilder never misses the trick, and Emerson Mead, over at Las Plumas, does it as if he were a machine and couldn't miss. If you ever get a grudge against me, Mr. Conrad, I'll engage the undertaker and order my tombstone at once!"

Bancroft turned away quickly. He swung his arm upward, fired, and found that his bullet had hardly nicked the outer rim of the target.

"Don't pay any attention to your gun," Curtis admonished him. "Keep both eyes open, look at the bull's-eye, and unconsciously you'll aim right at it. If you get into a gun play, where it's a choice between giving up the ghost yourself or getting the other fellow's, you want to fasten your eyes on his most accessible part, point your gun that way, and shoot on the wink. Between the eyes is a good place, for then you can hold him with your own. That's the way I shall fix Delafield," he added, dropping his voice.

Cold anger seized upon Bancroft as the picture of that gun muzzle close to his own forehead came vividly into his imagination. Until now Conrad had not mentioned the subject of Delafield to him since the day of his return to town, and the banker's friendly feelings had renewed themselves with the growth of his own confidence and with his desire to compa.s.s what he wished without violence. But Curtis had only to speak of his purpose in this cold-blooded manner for the banker to know that he, too, was rapidly becoming as implacable as his pursuer.

Judge Banks was talking to Miss Dent about the view and the New Mexican climate, and quoting Wordsworth on "the witchery of the soft blue sky."

She was compelling an expression of smiling interest, while her thoughts were with Bancroft and his danger. The desire possessed her to stand near him, to hover about him, as if her mere presence would protect him from peril. The friendly revolver practice between the two men made her sick at heart, and she was waiting with inward impatience for the moment when she could propose returning to the veranda.

Lucy and Sheriff Tillinghurst were laughing and talking together in a running game of playful coquetry on her part and admiring badinage on his. "Now, Miss Lucy," he was saying, "if you-all are going to be my deputy, you'll have to learn to shoot with at least one eye open. I can't have my deputy shootin' around promiscuous with both eyes shut. It might be used against me in the campaign."

"Oh, I'll keep both eyes open, just as Mr. Conrad says," she exclaimed, taking the Sheriff's revolver from his hand. "Just like this," she went on gayly, pointing the pistol straight at Curtis's face as he came toward them, saying, "Now you must have another chance, Miss Bancroft."

Tillinghurst sprang forward as he saw her level the revolver and struck it up with his hand. Her pressure on the trigger had been light, but the contraction of her finger as the Sheriff knocked it upward discharged the weapon. The bullet sang through the air; and she paled and staggered backward, looking wildly from one to the other as she exclaimed:

"Oh, I was sure it wasn't loaded!"

"A gentleman's gun is always loaded, Miss Lucy," said the Sheriff, mild reproof in his tone.

Lucy leaned, trembling, against Miss Dent's supporting arm. "I--I was sure we shot out all the bullets," she stammered, looking wistfully at Conrad. "I'll never, never touch a gun again."

"Don't feel so worried, Miss Bancroft," urged Curtis, gently. "You weren't pressing the trigger, and I'd have ducked if you had, for I was watching your hand. I wasn't in the least danger, and you mustn't think about it again. It'll be your turn next, Miss Dent," he added jocosely.

"Aleck had his the other day, and sent a bullet into the wall just above my head."

"And you still have confidence in us, you reckless man!" Louise exclaimed with a little effort at gayety, but with eyes on the ground.

"Perhaps he thinks he'll be in less danger if he teaches you-all how to handle your guns," the Sheriff commented, as Miss Dent led the way back to the house.

CHAPTER XIV

THREE LETTERS

"h.e.l.lo, Curt! When are you going back to the ranch?"

Pendleton, the invalid from the East, accosted Conrad as he emerged from the physician's office, where he had gone for a last dressing of his wounds before returning to the round-up.

"Right now, Mr. Pendleton. Anything I can do for you?"

"Say, Curt, I've been wondering if I couldn't flirt gravel along with your bunch for a while. I want to take in everything that's going while I'm here. I've never been on a ranch, or seen a round-up, or a steer on the prod; and I'd like to see how things are done. Would a tenderfoot be in your way?"

"Not a bit of it! Come right along, Pendy, if you think you can stand it. You'll have to rough it, you know; sleep on the ground with your saddle for a pillow, ride hard, and eat what comes."

"Oh, I can stand whatever the rest of you do. I don't fork a horse as well as a cowboy or a circus rider, but I can stick on, and I can get there 'most as soon as anybody--I mighty near got there too soon when we went after Melgares, didn't I?"

"All right, Pendleton! If you think you can stand it, come right along with me this morning. I'm going to ride the rest of the day and most of the night; but if that's too much for you you can stop over at the ranch to-night, and catch up with us to-morrow."

"I reckon I'll take it all in along with you, and I'll meet you in half an hour in front of the court-house," and Pendleton bustled off. Conrad went after his mare, dropping into Bancroft's office for a last word.

The president of the First National Bank was reading his morning's mail.

He frowned over a note from Rutherford Jenkins reminding him that the first of the month was approaching, and warning him not to forget the remittance due on that day. He looked at the calendar. No; he could not take time before the first to go to Las Vegas and crack the whip he was preparing over Jenkins's head; he would have to make this payment. Next he opened a letter from Dellmey Baxter:

"MY DEAR BANCROFT:--I think you'd better correct young Conrad's curious notion that I had anything to do with Jose Gonzalez's attack upon him, or with Jose's going down there. If you don't he might turn his suspicions in some other direction. Of course, there's nothing in it but that greaser's bad temper. But he thinks there is, and he's just hot-headed enough to make it uncomfortable for anybody he happens to suspect. I didn't send Jose to him and so, naturally, I can't do anything about it, even if the fellow does get angry and act like the devil.

"I'm sorry I can't help you in your desire to retire from our Rio Grande valley land business. I'm tied up so that I've got no ready money with which to buy you out. Of course, if you are determined to get out, you might find a purchaser elsewhere. But as a friend I advise you not to sell. There's going to be big money in it, and we can probably launch the enterprise within the next six months.

You'll make a great mistake if you quit. If you decide to stay in I'm willing for you to keep on as a silent partner, just as we have done so far."

The banker scowled, swearing softly to himself as he read the first paragraph. "Didn't send him, didn't he," he grumbled. "Then who did? I didn't, that's sure. He recommended the fellow as a good cowboy, and Conrad engaged him. I had nothing to do with it." He was silent again as he studied the second part of the letter. A suspicion rose in his mind that Baxter was purposely making it difficult, almost impossible, for him to get out of the land scheme. What was his purpose in so doing? Did the Congressman wish to keep a hold on him to hamper, perhaps even to control, his movements? "I wonder," Bancroft thought, "if Dell is afraid I'll try to cut him out politically before he's ready to step down. I'd like his place well enough if--but that's something out of my reckoning for a long time yet, even if everything goes right." The surmise that Baxter wished to have such a bridle upon him left him uneasy. Well, he would have to let this thing go on as it was. If he tried to sell to any one else knowledge of his connection with it might leak out and reach Lucy's ears. He winced as he thought of her feeling toward Baxter because of this business. And the investment promised well; rich returns might be expected from it soon. n.o.body knew of his part in it except Dell, and if he stayed in and kept quiet it was unlikely that anybody else would find it out. That might be the safer plan, after all.

Conrad came to the door, and after a few minutes' talk Bancroft said to him, remembering Baxter's injunction, "Well, Curt, I hope you won't find that your crazy Mexican has been trying to kill off all your men."

Curtis laughed. "Oh, Jose will be all right; and he's the best cow-punch I've got on the ranch. Dell Baxter will attend to him."

"That's an absurd notion of yours that Baxter had anything to do with it," replied Bancroft, the Congressman's letter still in his mind.