LITMIR.BIZ

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voted. He intended to take personal charge of the hat, determined upon securing a fair deal in spite of the great odds.

      As he stepped forward he saw Greasy grin maliciously and try to snatch a gun from the holster of a cowboy who stood near him. This attempt was frustrated by the puncher, who suddenly dropped his hand to his holster, where it closed upon Greasy’s. The puncher snarled, muttered profanely, and struck furiously at Greasy, knocking him down in a corner.

      Other men moved. There were curses; the flashing of metal as guns came out. Hollis felt rather than saw Norton and Allen advance toward the table and stand beside him. A grim smile wreathed his face over the knowledge that in the crowd there were at least two men upon whom he might depend to the end–whatever the end might be.

      He heard Dunlavey snarl an oath, saw his big form loom out of the crowd, saw one of his gigantic hands reach for the hat on the table.

      “I reckon I’ll take charge of this now!” he sneered, his brutal face close to Hollis’s.

      Hollis would have struck the face that was so close to his, but at the instant he saw Dunlavey’s hand reach out for the hat he saw another hand dart out from the other side of the table, seize the hat, and draw it out of Dunlavey’s reach.

      “I don’t reckon that you’ll take charge of her!” said a voice.

      Hollis turned quickly. Over the table leaned Ten Spot, the captured hat in his hand, a big forty-five in the other, a cold, evil glitter in his eyes as he looked up at Dunlavey.

      “I don’t reckon that you’re goin’ to have a hand in runnin’ this show a-tall, Bill,” he sneered. “Me an’ my friends come down here special to tend to that.” He grinned the shallow, hard grin that marks the passing of a friendship and the dawn of a bitter hatred. “You see, Bill, me an’ my friends has got sorta tired of the way you’ve been runnin’ things an’ we’re shufflin’ the cards for a new deal. This here tenderfoot which you’ve been a-slanderin’ shameful is man’s size an’ we’re seein’ that he gits a fair shake in this here. I reckon you git me?”

      Hollis felt Norton poking him in the ribs, but he did not turn; he was too intent upon watching the two principal actors in the scene. Tragedy had been imminent; comedy was slowly gaining the ascendency. For at the expression that had come over Dunlavey’s face several of the men were grinning broadly. Were the stakes not so great Hollis would have felt like smiling himself. Dunlavey seemed stunned. He stood erect, passing his hand over his forehead as though half convinced that the scene were an illusion and that the movement of the hand would dispel it. Several times his lips moved, but no words came and he turned, looking about at the men who were gathered around him, scanning their faces for signs that would tell him that they were not in sympathy with Ten Spot. But the faces that he looked upon wore mocking grins and sneers.

      “An’ I’ve been tellin’ the boys how you set Yuma on Nellie Hazelton, an’ they’ve come to the conclusion that a guy which will play a low down mean game like that on a woman ain’t no fit guy to have no hand in any law makin’.”

      Ten Spot’s voice fell coldly and metallically in the silence of the room. Slowly recovering from the shock Dunlavey attempted a sneer, which gradually faded into a mirthless smile as Ten Spot continued:

      “An’ you ain’t goin’ to have a hand in any more law-makin’ in this man’s town. Me an’ my friends is goin’ to see to that, an’ my boss, Mr. Hollis. I reckon that’ll be about all. You don’t need to hang around here while we do the rest of the votin’. Watkins an’ Greasy c’n stay to see that everything goes on regular.” He grinned wickedly as Dunlavey stiffened. “I reckon you know me, Bill. I ain’t palaverin’ none. You an’ Ten Spot is quits!”

      He stepped back a little, away from the table, his teeth showing in a mocking grin. Then he looked down at the hat which he still held in his hand–Dunlavey’s hat. He laughed. “Why, I’m cert’nly impolite!” he said insinuatingly. “Here you’ve been wantin’ to go an’ I’ve been keepin’ your hat!” He dumped the ballots upon the table and passed the hat to Dunlavey. Without a word Dunlavey took it, jerking it savagely, placed it on his head, and strode to the door, stepping down into the street.

      There was a short silence. Then Ten Spot turned and looked at Hollis, his face wreathed in a broad grin.

      “I reckon you-all think you know somethin’ about handlin’ the law,” he said, “but your little Ten Spot ain’t exactly the measliest card in the deck! We’ll do our votin’ now.”

      A quarter of an hour later, after Ten Spot and his friends had cast their ballots and Watkins had been forced to make out a certificate of nomination,–which reposed safely in Ben Allen’s inside pocket–the kerosene lights were extinguished and the men filed out. Hollis and Ten Spot were the last to leave. As they stood for a moment on the threshold of the doorway Hollis seized Ten Spot’s hand and gripped it heartily.

      “I want to thank you, my friend,” he said earnestly.

      Ten Spot jerked his hand away. “Aw, hell!” he said as they sought the darkness of the street, “I ain’t mushin’ none. But,” he added, as a concession to his feelings, “I reckon to know a white man when I see one!”

      Chapter XXVI. Autumn and the Gods

       Table of Contents

      It was Sunday afternoon and a hazy, golden, late September sun was swimming lazily in the blue arc of sky, flooding the lower gallery of the Circle Bar ranchhouse, but not reaching a secluded nook in which sat Hollis and Nellie Hazelton. Mrs. Norton was somewhere in the house and Norton had gone down to the bunkhouse for a talk with the men–Hollis and Nellie could see him, sitting on a bench in the shade of the eaves, the other men gathered about him.

      Below the broad level that stretched away from the ranchhouse sank the big basin, sweeping away to the mountains. Miles into the distance the Circle Bar cattle could be seen–moving dots in the center of a great, green bowl. To the right Razor-Back ridge loomed its bald crest upward with no verdure saving the fringe of shrubbery at its base; to the left stretched a vast plain that met the distant horizon that stretched an interminable distance behind the cottonwood. Except for the moving dots there was a total absence of life and movement in the big basin. It spread in its wide, gradual, downward slope, bathed in the yellow sunshine of the new, mellow season, peacefully slumberous, infinitely beautiful.

      Many times had Hollis sat in the gallery watching it, his eyes glistening, his soul stirred to awe. Long since had he ceased regretting the glittering tinsel of the cities of his recollection; they seemed artificial, unreal. When he had first gazed out over the basin he had been oppressed with a sensation of uneasiness. Its vastness had appalled him, its silence had aroused in him that vague disquiet which is akin to fear. But these emotions had passed. He still felt awed–he would always feel it, for it seemed that here he was looking upon a section of the world in its primitive state; that in forming this world the creator had been in his noblest mood–so far did the lofty mountains, the wide, sweeping valleys, the towering buttes, and the mighty canyons dwarf the flat hills and the puny shallows of the land he had known. But he was no longer appalled; disquietude had been superseded by love.

      It all seemed to hold some mystery for him–an alluring, soul-stirring mystery. The tawny mountains, immutable guardians of the basin, whose peaks rose somberly in the twilight glow–did they hold it? Or was it hidden in the basin, in the great, green sweep that basked in the eternal sunlight?

      Perhaps there was no mystery. Perhaps he felt merely the romance that would inevitably come to one who deeply appreciated the beauty of a land into which he had come so unwillingly? For romance was here.

      He turned his head slightly and looked at the girl who sat beside him. She also was looking out over the basin, her eyes filled with a light that thrilled him. He studied her face long, noting the regular features, the slight tan, through which shone the dusky bloom of perfect health; the golden brown

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