Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox

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thrown off this evening. She felt somehow on insecure ground. Almost as if she were on unsafe ground.

      He came back at the end of ten minutes; and, though he smiled easily and resumed the tour of inspection, there was about him a subtle change. He lost a little of the urbane courtesy; he made no particular attempt to carry on small talk. The girl all of a sudden decided she was weary and said as much.

      "It has been a long day. I believe I had better go up."

      "I'm sorry. There are a number of things yet to be discussed."

      "For instance?" she suggested, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

      "My dear girl, you are a complete mystery to me—and to others. Don't you think it fair to let some of us in on what you have done all these years?"

      She rose three steps and poised again. "What does it matter? I am only Gay Thatcher. I have seen some of the world—and I hope to see more. I love adventure—almost as much as you do, Mr. Woolfridge. But I rather think I disagree with you about the relative qualities of evil. You see, I was brought up strictly orthodox. And the training still endures."

      "I am interested to hear you say it. You show me a great many different small peepholes of yourself—-all very attractive, but none of them more than a hint. What of the future?"

      "The future," replied Gay, for once quite sober, "is as much a mystery to me as to you. I content myself with doing what I must do. And that is, making a living."

      He bowed. "I bid you good-night. Ysabel has lighted the fire in your room. We have many things to talk about in the future."

      She looked down with that quizzical, half-humorous glance so much a part of her. "My dear sir, how long do you think I am staying here?"

      "I wish and I hope," said William Wells Woolfridge with extraordinary fervency, "that it be forever."

      She went on up and into her room without answer. Woolfridge kept his eyes on the landing for a few moments, then turned to a desk in one corner of the vast room. He took a cigar and shuffled before him three different sheets of paper. Each of these bore the same letterhead—that of the power company down- territory. Each was brief, each doubtful and suggesting complications. Woolfridge reread them, agile mind building up meanings between the words. And at last he rose and warmed himself by the fire, rocking to and fro on his heels.

      "It will go through," said he. "I will put it through, one means or another. I am not to be stopped. Not by anything, legal or illegal. What is legality, anyhow? I am committed to this thing. I will not go back."

      In her room Gay turned out the light and from her pillow watched the cheerful running of the fireplace flames. Drowsiness immediately overtook her. "I think," she told herself, "that William Wells Woolfridge is one of the most dangerous men I have yet met. And the danger of him is that he conceals himself so well. I wonder if he stops short of any of the commandments? Gay, my dear, you wiggle out of this quickly. Wolf's Head is a poor place for you." She dropped asleep, thinking not of Woolfridge but of Jim Chaffee.

      VIII. THE TIDE GOES OUT

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      Wedged there between shoulders of rock that permitted his body to sink slightly inside the steep face of the canyon wall, and with a ledge no more than four inches wide holding him against a sheer drop to death, Jim Chaffee passed through those thundering, crashing moments of ordeal and torture. He was surrounded all at once by the crush and the bellow of a herd going to its doom. This mass swept out of the darkness to right and left of him. The brutes shot directly over the top of his head, pitching far into the maw of the gorge. Nothing could stop the force of that flight; nothing could divert it now. Sprays of sand and rock skimmed his back, and all that protected him from being struck and torn loose by those scudding, flailing hoofs was the insecure outcrop of lava substance above him. Even so, a breaking away of that outcrop by the tremendous pressure exerted upon it might happen at any instant; a chance hoof might plunge down and knock his feet clear of the ledge. He faced eternity while the roar and the confusion swelled to an indescribable pitch and his brain grew giddy from the strain of it.

      Far down he heard the wailing of animate flesh; he had the sensation of a vast waterfall ruslnng over the rim. All muscles were growing numb from the pressure he placed upon them. Where was the barb wire that had been on the fence posts earlier in the afternoon? At this very spot he had spread the strands apart to let himself and Gay Thatcher through. Cattle stench was in his throat, and a stumbling brute fell so close to him that he got the impact of wind breaking against the carcass. He no longer was able to command his fingers, no longer able to feel the strain of them against the rock. In that second of black despair when he was about ready to give up, the last member of the herd capsized and hurtled down with a grunt and full-throated bawling. And then it was over, and a queer, oppressed silence settled along the dusty earth. He started to haul himself out and was arrested by voices.

      "Got 'em all?"

      "Yeah. Every last pound o' flesh."

      Riders were moving within ten feet of Chaffee. He heard the rasp of leather and the jingle of chains. A match broke the darkness, but he was in too cramped a position to be able to look above the outcrop.

      "Cut that out! Pinch the match, yuh fool!"

      "What's the difference? Shucks—"

      "Which one o' you addle-brains fired that shot?"

      Jim heard denial come from a number of throats. There could be no mistaking the voice of the questioner. That rumbling tone could come only from the immense barrel of Theodorik Perrine.

      "Well, by Jupiter, somebody fired it!"

      "Reckon' Chaffee come back from Woolfridgc's in time to get mixed up with the herd?"

      "I shore would like to think he was takin' his last drink o' water now," growled Perrine. "But we ain't gettin' rid o' Chaffee that easy. Some o' you dudes is lyin' to me. When I find out who it is I'll strip said party and cut my mark. Didn't I say no shootin'? We ain't advertisin' this."

      "Nobody in this outfit fired a shot." That, Chaffee decided, was Sleepy Slade. Sleepy was the only man in Perrine's gang able to talk back. "Let's sift around and see if we can corral Chaffee."

      "We're goin' to get out of here," said Perrine. "It's work aplenty for one night. I got orders to be humble about it. I got orders not to get in a personal fight with Chaffee, and I don't want none of you gents to kill him afore I get directions to do it myself."

      "I'll bet plenty pesos he ain't far off," grumbled Sleepy Slade. "Let's look, anyhow."

      "Shut up, Sleepy. I'm runnin' this gang. I'm obeyin' instructions until I get a good crack at him when nobody's lookin'. Come on. Back to home. Stretch out."

      They galloped away. Chaffee raised one half-paralyzed arm and hooked it over the rim. Then he raised the other. And there he hung for a long, doubtful moment until the cramp wore out of his hands. He pulled himself upward and back to safety, and fell flat as his muscles and nerves, stretched to the point of breaking, began to jangle and shake as they had never done in twenty-seven years.

      It would have broken a lesser man—broken him for all time. But at the end of five minutes Jim Chaffee sat up and rolled himself a cigarette, shielding the flare of the match in his palms. The light wavered a little, which made him swear softly. "I never thought anything could do that. But I'm here to tell the universe and every part and parcel thereof I ain't ashamed of these shakes. Don't know when just bein' alive felt so all-fired good."

      He relished the smoke as he never had relished another. The cold, sharp night fog penetrated his clothes and quickly chilled him. Still he kept his place on the hard ground, lungs reaching out for the pungent air, looking up to the unfathomed sky. "I ought to be plumb glad I'm in a shape to feel cold. So Theodorik's got orders not to kill me unless it's done private and secret. Huh. Wonder who he's takin' orders from? There's another item that comes under the head of useful

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