The Last Straw Part 38

"No, somebody shot at my bed one night; somebody shot at me while I was riding open country one day." At that a glint of astonishment showed in Webb's face. "There's just one way to handle men like that, and I'm doin' it now, to-night. I'm--"

The crash of a shot from behind, the splintering of the door panel at his shoulder, cut him short. Webb jumped as though the bullet had been sent at him. Hepburn's face contorted into a grimace of elation.

With a catch of his breath Beck wheeled, senses steeled to this emergency, driving down the quick panic that wanted to throttle his heart.

There in the shaft of yellow light, bareheaded, stepping toward him, arm raised to fire again, was d.i.c.k Hilton. It was a situation in which fractions of time were infinitely precious. That first shot had gone wild because the Easterner, unfamiliar with fire arms, unnerved by the rage which swept up within him, had let his eagerness have full sway.

But now he was stepping forward, coming closer. At that range he could not miss!

And Beck saw all that in the split second it required for him to whirl, leaving his back exposed to those other men for the instant. He squeezed the trigger as he flipped his left-hand gun toward his a.s.sailant. The two reports sounded almost as one, but the stream of fire from Hilton's weapon instead of stabbing toward Beck streaked into the air and the automatic, ripped from his hand by the same ball that tore his fingers, spun clinking to earth.

But even as it struck, before Beck could turn again to cover the room behind, a swinging palm sent the lamp crashing to the floor. He sprang clear of the doorway. An instant before he had dominated the situation, now he was a fugitive.

Inside, darkness; out in the dooryard, starlight. Inside, ruthless enemies who had listened to a declaration that precluded quarter; outside, their target who could not hope to live before the fusillade that must come.

"Put up your hands!" Beck gasped, jabbing a gun into Hilton's stomach and springing behind the Easterner's body, screening himself.

Crouched there, peering over the other's shoulder, one gun against Hilton's trembling body, the other thrust past it to cover the doorway, he paused. He heard quick, unsteady footsteps, an oath, a hurried word and then the man before him cried huskily:

"For G.o.d's sake don't shoot, boys! You'll get me!"

After that there pa.s.sed a moment in which Hilton's breath made the only sound that came to Beck's ears.

"I'm going to back up to my horse," he said lowly, "you follow me."

It was unnecessary to add a threat. Enough threat in the situation!

Slowly he began to back, feeling his way, shoving the one gun harder against Hilton's body, keeping the other ready for instant use should those who watched choose to shoot down the Easterner to be at him. The roan snorted softly in query and Beck spoke. But the animal, startled by the shooting, unsatisfied that this huddle creeping toward him was wholly friendly, backed off. Tom spoke again; then ceased all movement, for from inside had come a muttering and stealthy footsteps crossed the floor. A door at the rear of the house creaked. One or several had gone out to stalk him! The others, he knew, waited within to take first opportunity to kill that might be offered.

"Stand still!" he said sharply to the horse and turned his head ever so quickly to see the animal, head to him, back slowly.

He moved backward faster for a few steps, shoving the revolver harder into Hilton's body to a.s.sure his obedience, but the horse only progressed as rapidly, snuffing loudly at this performance which no horse could be expected to understand!

They moved in a circle, swinging in toward the house, Beck ever keeping Hilton as a direct screen. He stopped and the horse stopped. He listened. He heard soft movements within the house. He thought he heard a faint rustling behind a far corner of the building but a cow, bawling at the moment, obscured the faint sound.

Beck felt a cold damp standing out on his body. From the darkness, from any direction, disaster might strike at any second!

He began to talk to the horse soothingly, moving toward him slowly, but the roan would not understand. Once he was within an arm's length of the bridle, but before he could grasp it the animal had swung his head ever so slightly and was moving off again, pa.s.sing a corner of the house from where that suggestion of a rustle had come.

And then, of a sudden, the horse leaped sideways, with a startled grunt, as a horse will that comes upon a coiled snake. He lunged toward Beck and Hilton, swinging about on his hind feet, beginning to run for the gate, thoroughly frightened and bent on escape from the thing that alarmed him.

It was Beck's last chance! As the horse leaped toward the gate he sprang back a pace from Hilton, raised both guns and fired, one at the window, one at the doorway. Gla.s.s burst and tinkled and he heard the panel of the door again sliver. As he opened fire the great roan swerved; his hoofs spurned the ground in the impatience of fright and Beck, shooting again toward the house, turned and ran swiftly for the fleeing horse.

Down in the shadows the thing which had frightened the horse rose, stumbling into shape. Flame streamed from Beck's guns toward it, but he shot as he ran and his fire was inaccurate. He cried sharply as the animal swung even wider in his circuit toward the gate, sprang forward in long strides, dropped the gun from his right hand, leaped, fastened his fingers about the horn, took two quick strides and vaulted into the saddle.

The animal leaped the half lowered bars and Beck fired again, twice at the house, once at the figure outside, and then flung himself far down over the roan's shoulder as the window belched flame and stabs of it came from about the building and bullets screeched overhead. He fanned the roan's belly with his hat and twenty rods further swung into an erect position again, leaning low as they ate the road.

"A close one, old timer!" he muttered to the horse. "_That_ was a chance!"

And miles further on, when the roan had cooled from his first desperate dash that had carried Tom to unquestionable safety for the night, he said aloud:

"Now what was _he_ doin' there? And how much will he count?"

CHAPTER XVII

HIS FAITHFUL LITTLE PONY

In the days that followed you might have seen approaching from a distance a rider for the HC. Watching, you would have noticed that he stopped his horse, rode on, stopped again, rode on and stopped the third time. Had you not halted and repeated the performance he would not have come toward you and, on coming within eyesight, you might have seen him sitting with a hand on his holster, or rifle scabbard--for the deadlier weapons appeared--carelessly enough, outwardly, but latent with disaster. For war had been declared. Jane Hunter's men were ready for trouble, waiting for trouble, but it did not come at once for though Hepburn and Webb and their following hated Tom Beck for the man he was they respected him and gave heed to his warning to stay away from HC property ... or at least not to be seen thereabouts.

The war went on, but it was a silent, covert struggle, and though Beck suspected happenings, he could not know all that transpired.

For instance:

It was Webb who finally dropped the pliers and declared the job finished, standing back to survey the stout cedars which had been bound together with wire to form a gate for one of the numerous little blind draws that stabbed back into the parapet which surrounded Devil's Hole.

In the recesses of that draw was the smallest amount of seeping water, enough, say, to keep young calves alive. From a distance of a hundred yards this barricade of tough boughs and steel strands would not be detected.

Again:

They came up from the mouth of the Hole after dusk had fallen, Bobby Cole and her father, the old horses drawing the wagon along the indistinct track which wound through the sage. They were tired and silent and finally the girl's head dropped to Cole's shoulder and she slept, with his arm about her, holding her close, his lids and mustache and shoulders drooping.

The wagon halted, hours later, before the blocked draw and, straddled upon their bodies, the girl liberated first one calf, then another, until six had been shoved from the tail gate into the hidden pen. Then they drove back toward their cabin.

"Why don't I think it's wrong to steal?" the girl asked soberly.

Alf shook his head. "It ain't ... for us...."

"But I've read that it is," she protested, scowling into the darkness.

"I read it in a book, about a man that stole; that book said it was wrong. Why don't I think it's wrong?"

She turned her face to him and he looked down to see, under the starlight, her mouth pathetically drooping, her lips trembling, and the big brown eyes filled with perplexed tears.

"Why'm I so different from other folks? Maybe that's why I never had no friends...."

"It ain't wrong for you to steal from her," he said defensively.

The girl looked ahead again.

"No, it can't be. I hate her.... I like to steal from her. But why ain't it wrong for me if it's wrong for anybody else?"

"I've allus told you it was the thing to do. Ain't that enough?" he asked wearily....

"Did you see him this mornin'?"--as if to change the subject.

Bobby nodded her head.