The Texan Part 29

Curt burst out laughing: "Can you beat it?"

"I suppose they'll have Red Rock Coulee all mussed up," reflected the Texan, with a grin.

"You wait 'til I tell the boys."

"Don't you. They'd hurt him. He's a-whirlin' a bigger loop than he can throw, the way it is."

Curt fumbled in his slicker and produced a flask which he tendered.

Tex shook his head: "No thanks, I ain't drinkin'."

"You ain't _what_?"

"No, I'm off of it"; he dismounted and tightened his cinch, and the other followed his example.

"Off of it! You ain't sick, or nothin'?"

"No. Can't a man----?"

"Oh, sure, he could, but he wouldn't, onless--you got your camp near here?"

Tex was aware the other was eyeing him closely.

"Tolerable."

"Let's go camp then. I left my pack horse hobbled way up on Last Water."

The Texan was thinking rapidly. Curt was a friend of long standing and desired to share his camp, which is the way of the cow country. Yet, manifestly this was impossible. There was only one way out and that was to give offence.

"No. I'm campin' alone these days."

A slow red mounted to the other's face and his voice sounded a trifle hard: "Come on up to mine, then. It ain't so far."

"I said I was campin' alone."

The red was very apparent now, and the other took a step forward, and his words came slowly:

"Peck Maguire told me, an' I shut his dirty mouth for him. But now I know it's true. You're ridin' with the pilgrim's girl."

At the inference the Texan whitened to the eyes. "_You're a d.a.m.ned liar_!" The words came evenly but with a peculiar venom.

Curt half drew his gun. Then jammed it back in the holster. "Not between friends," he said shortly, "but jest the same you're goin' to eat them words. It ain't a trick I'd think of you--to run off with a man's woman after killin' him. If he was alive it would be different.

I'd ort to shoot it out with you, I suppose, but I can't quite forget that time in Zortman when you----"

"Don't let that bother you," broke in the Texan with the same evenness of tone. "_You're a d.a.m.ned liar_!"

With a bound the man was upon him and Tex saw a blinding flash of light, and the next moment he was scrambling from the ground. After that the fight waxed fast and furious, each man giving and receiving blows that landed with a force that jarred and rocked. Then, the Texan landed heavily upon the point of his opponent's chin and the latter sank limp to the floor of the coulee. For a full minute Tex stood looking down at his victim.

"Curt can sc.r.a.p like the devil. I'm sure glad he didn't force no gun play, I'd have hated to hurt him." He recovered the flask from the ground where the other had dropped it, and forced some whiskey between his lips. Presently the man opened his eyes.

"Feelin' better?" asked the Texan as Curt blinked up at him.

"Um-hum. My head aches some."

"Mine, too."

"You got a couple of black eyes, an' your lip is swol up."

"One of yours is turnin' black."

Curt regained his feet and walked slowly toward his horse. "Well, I'll be goin'. So long."

"So long," answered the Texan. He, too, swung into the saddle and each rode upon his way.

CHAPTER XVI

BACK IN CAMP

From their place of concealment high upon the edge of Antelope b.u.t.te, Alice Marc.u.m and Endicott watched the movements of the three hors.e.m.e.n with absorbing interest. They saw the Texan circle to the south-eastward and swing north to intercept the trail of the unknown rider. They watched Bat, with Indian cunning, creep to his place of concealment at the edge of the coulee. They saw the riders disperse, the unknown to head toward the mountains at a gallop, and the Texan to turn his horse southward and ride slowly into the bad lands. And they watched Bat recover his own horse from behind a rock pinnacle and follow the Texan, always keeping out of sight in parallel coulees until both were swallowed up in the amethyst haze of the bad lands.

For an hour they remained in their lookout, pointing out to each other some new wonder of the landscape--a wind-carved pinnacle, the heliographic flashing of the mica, or some new combination in the ever-changing splendour of colours.

"Whew! But it's hot, and I'm thirsty. And besides it's lunch time."

Alice rose, and with Endicott following, made her way to the camp.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she breathed, as they ate their luncheon. "This life in the open--the pure clean air--the magnificent world all spread out before you, beckoning you on, and on, and on. It makes a person strong with just the feel of living--the joy of it. Just think, Winthrop, of being able to eat left-over biscuits and cold bacon and enjoy it!"

Endicott smiled: "Haven't I improved enough, yet, for 'Win'?--Tex thinks so."

The girl regarded him critically. "I have a great deal of respect for Tex's judgment," she smiled.

"Then, dear, I am going to ask you again, the question I have asked you times out of number: Will you marry me?"

"Don't spoil it all, now, please. I am enjoying it so. Enjoying being here with just you and the big West. Oh, this is the real West--the West of which I've dreamed!"

Endicott nodded: "Yes, this is the West. You were right, Alice.

California is no more the West than New York is."

"Don't you love it?" The girl's eyes were shining with enthusiasm.

"Yes. I love it," he answered, and she noticed that his face was very grave. "There must be something--some slumbering ego in every man that awakens at the voice of the wild places. Our complex system of civilization seems to me, as I sit here now, a little thing--a thing, somehow, remote--unnecessary, and very undesirable."

"Brooklyn seems very far away," murmured the girl.

"And Cincinnati--but not far enough away. We know they are real--that they actually exist." Endicott rose and paced back and forth.

Suddenly he stopped before the girl. "Marry me, Alice, and I'll buy a ranch and we will live out here, and for us Brooklyn and Cincinnati need never exist. I do love it all, but I love you a thousand times more."