The Desert Valley Part 21

'That's good,' grunted Lee. 'But I would be squatting on my diggings with a shot-gun under my arm. Al, here, can tell you a few things about Monte Devine and his crowd.'

'Next to Lee,' said Howard, 'Devine knows the mining game from hackamore to hoof. And he's a treacherous hound and a Jim Courtot man.'

'You said it, boy,' grunted Pony Lee. 'He's all of that. And he's no nickel shooter, either. If the game ain't big, he won't chip in.'

'But,' continued Howard, 'I guess you've doped it up wrong, Pony.

Chances are they've got something else up their sleeves. They couldn't possibly have dropped on to Longstreet's find.'

For a full minute Lee's eyes bored into Longstreet's. Then he spoke dryly:

'As long's the desert wind blows, word of a strike will go with it.

Maybe I have got the wrong end of it.' He shrugged loosely. 'I've done that sort of thing now and then. But I got one more thing to spill. Sanchia Murray's in town. Or she was a little while ago.'

Again he fixed his shrewd eyes upon Longstreet's tell-tale face, which slowly reddened. Pony Lee grunted and at last lighted his cigar.

Howard, with a look of sheer amazement, stared at Helen's father.

'You didn't tell Sanchia?' he gasped.

They got their answer in a perfect silence. Lee laughed somewhere deep down in his throat. Howard simply sat and stared. Then suddenly he sprang to his feet and grasped Longstreet by both shoulders, jerking him up out of his chair.

'Tell me about it,' he commanded sternly. 'What did you tell her?'

'Everything,' returned the bewildered college man. 'Why shouldn't I?

She promised not to say anything.'

Howard groaned.

'Oh, h.e.l.l!' he muttered and turned away. But he came back and explained quietly. 'She's as crooked as a dog's hind leg; she's running neck and neck, fifty-fifty, with Jim Courtot and Monte Devine on all kinds of deals--Come on. We've got to burn the earth getting back to Big Run. We'll beat 'em to it yet.'

'Wait a minute, Al,' called Lee softly. 'Let's get all the dope first.

You say, Mr. Longstreet, that you filed on your claim all right?'

Longstreet began to flounder and half-way through his recital bogged down helplessly. He had met Sanchia Murray, had gone with her to the Montezuma House, had seen Mr. Bates there----

'What sort of a looking gent is this Mr. Bates?' quizzed Pony Lee sharply.

'A short man, dark, black moustaches----'

Again Howard groaned. Lee merely smiled.

'Recognize the picture, Al? She steered him right into Monte to fix his papers! Well, by G.o.d!'

His expression was one of pure admiration. In his mind Sanchia Murray had risen to undreamed of heights--heights of impudence, but none the less daring. He could see the coup in all of its brilliance. But not so Howard.

'We saw her leave a letter at the hotel in Big Run!' he cried out. He was half-way to the door. 'She had the hunch then. By now Courtot and Devine and the rest are in the saddles, if they are not, some of them, already squatting on the job at Last Ridge! I'm on my way. Pony, come alive. Chase over to the court-house; take Longstreet with you and file on the claim if it isn't too late.'

As his last words came back to them he was out on the street and running. He knew within himself that it was too late. They would find that Sanchia or one of her crowd had already visited Harkness's office.

Well, that was one thing; the other was to take possession. His boots clattered loudly upon the echoing board sidewalk and men came out to look after him.

He came to his horse in front of the hotel, s.n.a.t.c.hed the tie-rope loose and went up into the saddle without bothering about the spurs hanging over the horn. His horse plunged under him and in another moment horse and rider were racing, even as Sanchia Murray's white mare had carried her, out toward Big Run.

He came as close to killing a horse that day as he had ever come in his life. His face grew sterner as he flung the barren miles behind him and higher and higher surged the bitterness in his heart. If Longstreet had found gold, and he believed that he had, it would have meant so much to Helen. He had seen how she did without little things; he had felt that she was just exactly the finest girl in all of the world; it had seemed to him only the right and logical thing that she should own a gold mine. And now it was to go to Jim Courtot and Sanchia Murray. Sanchia instead of Helen! At the moment he felt that he could have choked the lying heart out of the woman's soft white throat. As for Jim Courtot, already he and Howard hated each other as perforce two men of their two types must come to do. Here again was ample cause for fresh hatred; he drove his horse on furiously, anxious to come upon Courtot, thanking G.o.d in his heart that he could look to his enemy for scant words and a quick gun. There come to men at times situations when the only solution is to be found in shooting a way out.

Now, more than ever before in his life, was Alan Howard ready for this direct method.

Arrived in Big Run he rode straight on until he came to Tony Moraga's.

Here, if anywhere in the settlement, he could hope to find his man. A glance showed him one horse only at the rack, a lean sorrel that he recognized. It was Yellow Barbee's favourite mount, and it struck him that if there were further hard riding to be done, here was the horse to satisfy any man. He threw himself from the saddle, left his own horse balancing upon its trembling legs, and stepped into the saloon.

Moraga was dozing behind his bar. Yellow Barbee sat slumped over a table, his lean, grimy fingers twisting an empty gla.s.s. No one else was in the room.

'Courtot been here?' demanded Howard of Moraga.

Moraga shook his head. Howard glanced toward Barbee. The boy's face was sullen, his eyes clouded. He glowered at Moraga and, turning his morose eyes upon Howard, snapped out:

'Moraga lies. Jim was here a little while ago. He's just beat it with a lot of his rotten crowd, Monte Devine and Bettins and True. They're up to something crooked.'

'I forgot.' Moraga laughed greasily. 'Jim was in the back room there talking to Sanchia! Nice girl, no?' he taunted Barbee.

'I'll kill you some day, Moraga,' cursed Barbee thickly.

Howard turned back to the door.

'I want your horse, Barbee,' he said quickly. 'All right?'

'Go to it,' Barbee flashed out. 'And if you ain't man enough to get Jim Courtot pretty d.a.m.n soon, I am!'

'Keep your shirt on, kid,' Howard told him coolly. 'And keep your hands off. And for G.o.d's sake, stop letting that woman make a fool of you.'

Barbee cursed in his throat and with burning eyes watched the swing doors snap after the departing cattleman. Howard, his anger standing higher and hotter, threw himself to the back of Barbee's roan and left Big Run riding furiously from the jump. He knew the horse; it could stand the pace across the few miles and there was no time to lose.

There was scant enough likelihood as matters were of his coming to Last Ridge before Courtot's crowd. But the men might have failed to change to fresh horses; in that case his chance was worth something. And, always, until a game be played out, it is anybody's game.

As he rode out toward the Last Ridge trail his one thought was of Jim Courtot. Little by little he lost sight of other matters. He had fought with Jim Courtot before now; he had seen the spit of the gambler's gun twice, he had knocked him down. Courtot had hunted him, he had gone more than half-way to meet the man. And yet that which had occurred just now had happened again and again before; he came seeking Courtot, and Courtot had just gone. It began almost to seem that Courtot was fleeing him, that he had no stomach for a face-to-face meeting; that what he wanted was to step out unexpectedly from a corner, to shoot from the dark. This long-drawn-out, fruitless seeking baffled and angered. It was time, he thought, high time that he and Jim Courtot shot their way out of an unendurable mess. At every swinging stride of Barbee's roan he grew but the more impatient for the end of the ride and the face of Jim Courtot.

The broad sun flattened against the low hills and sank out of sight.

Dusk came and thickened and the stars began to flare out. Against the darkening skyline before him the Last Ridge country reared itself sombrely. A little breeze went dancing and shivering through the dry mesquite and greasewood. His horse stumbled and slowed down. They had come to the first of the rocky ground. He should be at the mouth of Dry Gulch in half an hour. And there he would find the men he had followed; they had beat him to it, for not a glimpse of them had he had. They were, then, first on the ground. That was something, he conceded. But it was not everything.

At last he dismounted and tied his horse to a bush. About him were thick shadows, before him the tall bulwark of the uplands. His feet were in a trail that he knew. He went on up, as silently, as swiftly as he could. Presently he stood on the edge of the same flat on which the Longstreets had made their camp, though a good half-mile to the east of the canvas shack. A wide black void across the plateau was Dry Gulch. Upon its nearer bank, not a hundred yards from him, a dry wood fire blazed brightly; he must have seen it long ago except that a shoulder of the mountain had hidden it. It burned fiercely, thrusting its flames high, sending its sparks skyward. In its flickering circle of light he saw dark objects which he knew must be the forms of men.

He did not count them, merely prayed within his heart that Courtot was among them, and came on. He heard the men talking. He did not listen for words, since words did not matter now. He hearkened for a certain voice.

The voices broke off and a man stood up. When he was within a score of paces of the fire Howard stopped. The man's thick squat form was clearly outlined. Unmistakably this was Monte Devine. There were two or three other forms squatting; it was impossible to distinguish a crouching man from a boulder.

'That you, Monte?' called Howard.

'Good guess,' came Monte's heavy, insolent voice. 'You've got one on me, though, pardner.'

'Courtot here?' demanded Howard.

Monte Devine laughed then.