The Desert Valley Part 10

'h.e.l.lo, Barbee,' said the man in the newly opened door. He came fully into the room and closed the door after him.

'h.e.l.lo, Courtot,' answered Barbee colourlessly.

With an effort Longstreet had withdrawn his a.n.a.lytic faculties from the consideration of the recent problem that had been solved for him by the cards themselves; now he was busied with collecting them, arranging them and getting ready to shuffle. Among the amused eyes watching him he was conscious of a pair of eyes that were not simply amused, the eyes of Jim Courtot. He looked up and took stock of the new-comer, impelled to something more exhaustive than a superficial interest by that intangible but potent thing termed personality. This man who had entered the room in familiar fashion through a back door and a rear room, was of the magnetic order; were he silent in a gathering of talking men he must have been none the less a conspicuous figure. And not because of any unusual saliency of physical attributes; rather for that emanation of personality which is like electricity--which, perhaps, is electricity.

He was tall, thin, very dark; his eyes were of beady blackness; he affected the sombre in garb from black hat and dark shirt to darker trousers and black boots. His face was clean-shaven; maybe he had just now been shaving in the rear room. His age might have lain anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. There are men like Jim Courtot, of dark visages and impenetrable eyes, thin and sallow men, upon whom the pa.s.sing years appear to work all of their havoc early and then be like vicious stinging things deprived of their stings.

'For G.o.d's sake!' spoke up Barbee, querulously and nervously. 'Are you going to shuffle all the spots off? Come alive, Longstreet.'

Longstreet allowed Barbee to cut and began dealing. Jim Courtot, his step quick but strangely noiseless, came to the table. His eyes were for Barbee as he said quietly:

'Just a little game for fun? Any objection if I kick in?'

Barbee frowned. Further, he hesitated--and hesitation played but a small part in El Joven's make-up. Finally he evaded.

'Where've you been all this long time, Courtot?' he asked sullenly.

'The biggest game of six years was pulled off down in Poco Poco last week and you wasn't there. I heard a man say you must be dead.'

Courtot considered him gravely. Longstreet regarded the man, fascinated. He did not believe that the man knew how to smile. To imagine Jim Courtot laughing was to fancy a statue laughing.

'When there's a big game pulled off and I'm not there, kid,' he answered when he was good and ready to answer, 'it's because there's a bigger game somewhere else. And I'm heeled to play in your little game if you think you're man enough to take me on.'

Barbee snarled at him.

'd.a.m.n you,' he said savagely.

Jim Courtot drew up his chair and sat down. There was a strange sort of swiftness and precision in the man's smallest acts. Now he brought from his hip pocket a handful of loose coins and set the heap on the table before him. For the most part the coins were gold; he stood ready to put into play several hundred dollars.

'Heeled, kid,' he repeated. The voice was as nearly dead and expressionless as a human voice can be; only the words themselves carried his insolence. 'Please, can I play in your game?'

To Barbee's youth it was plain challenge and, though he hated the man with his whole soul, Barbee's youth answered hotly:

'I'll take you on, Jim Courtot, any day.'

Thereafter Courtot ignored Barbee. He turned to Longstreet and watched him deal five cards face down. Then he appeared to lose interest in everything saving his own hand. Longstreet dealt the second five cards, faces up. They fell in the order of nine, four, jack, ace and, to himself, a seven. He did not believe that the new player had seen any but his own card. Barbee, to whose lot the ace had fallen, placed his bet. There was bright bitter challenge in his eyes as he stared across the table at Courtot.

'Ten bucks to start her off,' he said shortly.

Longstreet had supposed it customary to begin with a dollar; in his mind, however, there was little difference between one and ten.

Therefore he made no remark and placed his own money in the pot. The two Mexicans tossed their cards away. Courtot, looking at no one, and without speaking, came in. Longstreet dealt a second round. Now Courtot had two fours in sight; Barbee had two aces; Longstreet a king and a seven exposed, but also a king hidden. When Barbee said, 'Twenty bucks to play,' and said it viciously with a jeering stare at Courtot, Longstreet began counting out his money. But before he had completed the slow process the street door opened.

It was Alan Howard. He stood a moment on the threshold, his look one of sheer amazement. He had come looking for Professor James Edward Longstreet, eminent authority upon certain geological subjects. Had anyone told him that he would find his man playing stud poker with Barbee and two Mexicans and Jim Courtot----

'Barbee!' he cried out angrily, coming on swiftly until he stood over the table. 'What in h.e.l.l's name do you mean by steering Longstreet into a mess like this?'

'What do _you_ mean?' retorted Barbee hotly. 'What business is it of yours?'

'I mean Jim Courtot,' cut in Howard shortly. 'You know better than to drag any friend of mine into a game with him.'

Courtot appeared calm and unconcerned.

'The bet's made, gents,' he said briefly. 'Coming in, Longstreet?'

Longstreet looked confused. Before he could frame his answer, Howard made it for him. And he directed it straight to Courtot.

'I haven't had time to tell Mr. Longstreet about all of the undesirable citizens hereabouts,' he announced steadily. 'No, he's not coming in.'

'I imagine you'll spill an earful when you get going, Alan,' said Courtot. 'I'd like to listen in on it.'

Straightway the two Mexicans rose and left the table. Barbee, though he scorned to do so, pushed his chair back a little and kept his eyes upon the faces of the two men. Longstreet went from confusion to bewilderment. Howard considered the matter briefly; then, watching Jim Courtot while he spoke, he said crisply:

'Mr. Longstreet, you should get acquainted a bit before you play cards out here. Jim Courtot there, who plans to rob you the shortest way, is a crook, a thief, a dirty liar and a treacherous man-killer. He's rotten all the way through.'

A man does not fire a fuse without expecting the explosion. On the instant that Jim Courtot's hand left his pile of coins, Alan Howard's boots left the floor. The cattleman threw himself forward and across the table almost with his last word. Courtot came up from his chair, a short-barrelled revolver in his hand. But, before he was well on his feet, before the short barrel had made its required brief arc, Howard's blow landed. With all of his force, with all of the weight of his body, he struck Jim Courtot square upon the chin. Courtot went over backwards, spilling out of the chair that crumpled and snapped and broke to pieces; his gun flew wide across the room. Howard's impetus carried him on across the table so that he too fell, and across the body of the man he had struck. But when Alan got to his feet, Jim Courtot lay still and unconscious. And, for one, Longstreet thought that he had seen manslaughter done; the man's look was of death.

Howard picked up his hat and then what few of the scattered coins he judged were Longstreet's. Then he took the gaping little man by the arm and led him to the door.

'Miss Helen wanted you,' he said as they pa.s.sed outside.

'Did you kill him?' Longstreet was shuddering.

'No,' was the cool answer. 'But it looks as if I'd have to some day.

Better not say anything about this to Miss Helen.'

'Good heavens, no!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Longstreet. 'Not a word!'

Chapter IX

Helen Knew

Second only to her father's was Helen's eager interest in the world about her. The ride back to Desert Valley through the rich moonlight was an experience never to be forgotten. She and Howard alone in what appeared an enchanted and limitless garden of silence and of slumber, their horses' feet falling without noise as though upon deep carpets, the bright moon and its few attendant stars working the harsh land of the day over into a soft sweet country of subtle allurement--the picture of all this was to spring up vivid and vital in many an idle hour of the days to follow. Little speech pa.s.sed between them that night: they rode close together, they forgot the wagon which rocked and jolted along somewhere far behind them; they were content to be content without a.n.a.lysing. And at the end of the ride, when she felt Alan's strong hands aiding her from her saddle, Helen sighed.

The next morning early she and her father left Desert Valley, going straight to the professor's destination in the Last Ridge country.

They did not see Howard, who had breakfasted and ridden away before dawn, leaving with the kitchen boy a brief note of apology. The note said that his business was urgent and that he would call to see them in a day or so; further that Tod Barstow and Chuck Evans had orders to haul their goods in the wagon for them and to help them pitch camp.

Their departure was like a small procession. The wagon, carrying all their household goods, went ahead. Longstreet's two pack-horses were tied to the tail end of the wagon and trotted along with slack tie-ropes. Behind them rode the Longstreets upon saddle-horses, which Chuck Evans had brought to the house for them with his employer's compliments.

'Al said you was to ride this one, miss,' said Chuck Evans.

It was the black mare on which Howard had ridden into their camp the first morning--Sanchia or Helen.

'What is her name?' asked Helen quite innocently when she had mounted.

Chuck Evans grinned his characteristic happy grin.