The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 4

There was a stir in the crowd.

"That's some price for a bronco," said Huntington, with an a.s.sumed indifference.

"It sure is--if you're talkin' about a _bronco_," retorted the cow-puncher.

There was a brief silence, in which all eyes were turned again upon the golden horse, standing motionless but alert, as if keenly alive to all that pa.s.sed. The common ponies around him stamped, and champed their bits, and moved restlessly in their places, but Sunnysides remained calm and observant, with all the dignity and contempt of a captive patrician in a crowd of yokels.

Marion saw admiration and desire growing in Seth's eyes, and knew that her foreboding had not been without reason.

"And who's paying a thousand dollars for him?" asked Huntington.

"Haig's his name, Philip Haig," answered Larkin. "Know him?"

If Larkin had been a little nettled by the levity of the Paradisians he now had his revenge, though much to his surprise, in the extraordinary effect produced by his simple announcement. The smiles faded from the faces a.s.sembled around him; significant glances were exchanged; and there followed a silence so deep that the murmur of the Bright.w.a.ter could be heard quite clearly across the meadows. Then there was a rustling movement in the crowd, and every face, as if by a common impulse, or at a given signal, was turned toward Huntington.

Marion was not sure of the feelings of the others, but there could be no mistake in what she read in Huntington's black countenance. She was not only frightened, but surprised and pained. For all his coa.r.s.eness and crudity, she had until to-day believed him to be innately gentle, with only a rough and ungracious exterior. She had seen him always tender with Claire, whom undoubtedly he loved with all the best there was in him. But now she perceived the other side of his character, which she had indeed divined at first, but which she had firmly, on account of Claire, refused to acknowledge. An unworthy pa.s.sion glowed in his eyes; his features were distorted by an expression of mingled cunning and hate; and his head somehow seemed to sink lower between his shoulders as he leaned slightly forward, studying the face of the cow-puncher. Then swiftly he took himself in hand, and masked his pa.s.sions under an air of careless badinage that was, for the moment, suited to his purpose.

"But I don't just understand," he drawled insinuatingly. "Haig hasn't been away from the Park lately--unless he's gone an' come by night."

A snicker or two, and one loud guffaw rewarded him for this insult to his absent foe. But Marion felt the color rising to her cheeks.

"It's a year ago he's seen him, 'way off, shinin' in the sun,"

explained Larkin. "He stops at the X bar O, an' says he'll give a thousand for him."

"So that's all you've got to go on, is it?" sneered Huntington.

"Yes," answered Larkin uneasily.

"An' you think he'll make good, do you?"

"If a man's word ain't good he don't stay in this country long, does he?"

"That's right--he won't stay long!" replied Huntington, with a savage laugh.

"You mean to say--" queried Larkin pointedly, leaning across the neck of his pony, and looking keenly into Huntington's eyes.

"Nothing," answered Huntington, lifting his huge shoulders.

"That's sayin' a lot an' sayin' nothing," retorted Larkin.

"You'll know more when you try to collect that thousand."

"All right," responded Larkin, gathering up the reins as if to terminate the interview. "Where's his place--if it ain't a secret?"

"It's over beyond that ridge," said Huntington, pointing toward the west. "You go back about three miles the way you came, an' there's a branch road--"

"h.e.l.l!" snorted the cowboy whose arm hung limp at his side.

The three men exchanged glances. They were very weary; they had used almost the last of their powers to bring the outlaw this far; and they were plainly reluctant to undertake another tussle with the tireless animal, now ready, without doubt, to renew his struggle for liberty.

Huntington watched them narrowly.

"I'm all in!" grumbled Raley.

"You look it," said Huntington. Then he added lightly: "Still, you ought to fetch up at Haig's place before morning."

Marion felt disgust and resentment rising in her at this misrepresentation of the distance to Haig's ranch. Whatever Haig had done, this was cowardly and unfair. She looked eagerly at the other men, expecting to hear some one correct the gross exaggeration. But the faces were all blank, and no one spoke.

Something like a groan escaped from the lips of the injured cowboy. He looked as if he might tumble from the saddle at any instant.

"Sure we can!" said Larkin doggedly. "Come, men! Let's move on."

"Well, good luck!" said Huntington carelessly. And then, as if on second thought: "But see here! You fellows look all right to me, and if Haig's changed his mind, or hasn't got the cash handy, bring the horse back here, and I'll talk business with you."

"Talk business now!" Smith blurted out, averting his eyes from Larkin.

"Very well. I'll give you five hundred for him--if you don't want to go any farther. He ain't worth it, but he's a kind of a curiosity, and--"

"That ain't talkin' business worth a dam'!" cried Larkin. "Come along, men!"

He turned his pony's head, and took a fresh grip on the halter that held the prisoner. Smith moved also, though slowly, but Raley did not budge.

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I go any further!" he growled.

Smith stopped, and looked uncertainly from Raley to Larkin, from Larkin to Huntington, who was studying him craftily.

"The five hundred isn't wind," said Huntington sneeringly. "It's over there in Thompson's safe, if you want it."

"We'll see Haig first," said Larkin, compressing his lips, and speaking more to his companions than to Huntington.

Smith shifted uneasily in his saddle, while Raley avoided Larkin's eyes, and looked appealingly at Huntington. The ranchman, in his turn, took a sidelong glance, furtive and questioning, at the faces of his neighbors. The moment was critical, and much more was involved in the crisis than the possession of the golden outlaw. For a long time Huntington had a.s.sumed a certain leadership in the Park, but it had not always been unquestioned. His qualifications for leadership were not as apparent to all his neighbors as they were to himself, and there were some who even resented his pretensions. Nevertheless he had, in a way, succeeded; and he had been permitted to represent the entire valley as far as he liked in the war with Philip Haig. One and all, indeed, regarded Haig as an intruder; many of them had more than once threatened violence against him; and there was not among them one whom Haig, if he had wanted a defender, could have counted on. Yet, for all that, Huntington was practically alone in the depth of his hatred and the violence of his methods. If Haig had no friends in the Park, he had only a few, perhaps no more than two or three, inveterate enemies, of whom Huntington was the active representative.

Huntington now saw in the faces of the men around him that they were doubtful of him, and that the time was opportune to turn their pa.s.sivity into energetic support of his plans. Moreover, he had already "put his foot in it," had gone too far to withdraw without discredit. Having openly insulted the absent enemy, and having clearly revealed his intention to cheat him of this prize, to weaken now would be to abandon forever all hope of ascendency. For an instant he regretted what he had done, and cursed himself under his breath.

Then, taking a new grip on himself, he returned to the attack.

"Seven hundred and fifty, then!" he said with a swagger. "And it's cash, not words."

There was a moment of suspense. The three men, who were moving slowly away, turned in their saddles. Not a muscle quivered, not a foot stirred in the expectant crowd. Marion felt that in another minute she would cry out, shrieking at Seth, shrieking the warning Haig had sent by her.

"That's good enough, for me!" declared Raley, throwing the reins over his pony's head, and preparing painfully to dismount.

"No, Jim!" cried Smith. "Let him say a thousand, an' I'm with you.

'Tain't exactly on the square, but the's no use killin' ourselves for--"

His speech was cut short by a shrill cry from a woman who stood on a horse block at the outer edge of the crowd.

"Look! Look!" she called, pointing a finger toward the long white road.