LITMIR.BIZ

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metal that checked the restlessness in him. For a long period of time he held the gun in his hand, absorbed by the sinister beauty of it, eyes running the barrel and touching the worn wood that had felt the grip of his father before him as well as his own. It was an instrument of last resort, that gun, and its muzzle had spoken sentence in more than one trial of wills. This night Black Dave Denver meant it to so speak again. With that thought he thumbed in six cartridges, snapped the cylinder home, and dropped the weapon lightly in its seat. Once or twice he lifted and settled it, then turned the belt somewhat farther around. After that he turned for the door. His foreman stood in the way, cautiously yet stubbornly.

      "We'll ride too," said Lyle Bonnet.

      "You will get out of my road and stay out of it," snapped Denver.

      "Well, we'll foller."

      "Stay behind."

      "Listen, Dave—"

      "I told you what to do," said Denver. The foreman dropped his glance and retreated. Denver strode to his horse, spurred up the slope and down the trail he had just used, dipping into the canyon and skirting the melody-making creek. At the road he swung up the grade, gelding bunching beneath him; somewhere beyond the summit of that particular ridge and in the utter darkness of the night he entered a dismal side path and tipped downward. This went west, clinging secretively to the pines and the remote holes. Sweet Creek curved out of the unfathomed mystery, paralleled Denver a mile, and then fell off, declining the upthrust of another ridge that seemed to cast a more impenetrable shadow into the world.

      As he rode, going ever deeper into this wild land, he began to collect himself. The first wild burst of passion wore away, the fog of the night cut through and released his overwhelmed critical faculties. Thus in a measure he lost some of that savage desire to trample down and smash whoever was responsible for the attempt to plant a switched brand on him. Not that his desire to settle the matter was in anywise abated; but some of the urgency of that desire fell away. Rather critically he surveyed his course.

      All roads led to the Wells, and all this night activity emanated from the mind of one man—Lou Redmain's. Yet it was conceivable that some other outlaw, working under the shadow of Redmain's reputation, might have tried to plant the cow. It was also conceivable that some far greater and hitherto unsuspected authority lay behind the act. Denver had nothing to substantiate the latter belief, but it had been working in his mind since the inception of the vigilantes. Impalpable, without a shadow of fact or incriminating deed, it was but another of those whispering hints running abreast the wind.

      "Somebody, disliking me and knowing my temper," he reflected, "might have planted the cow. Figuring that if the vigilantes found it I'd be hooked, or figuring that if I discovered it first I'd make a play right square into Redmain. And that's what I'm about to do."

      The factor upsetting this idea was that one of Redmain's men had been with the cow. Yet even Redmain could not count on the utter loyalty of all his followers. Intrigue undermined every faction, honest and dishonest.

      Contradictory impressions came from all sides. There was no clear path out of the tangled web; and Denver, understanding this in his more logical state of mind, came to a decision.

      "Whoever is behind it, Redmain or another, I reckon I won't be fool enough to bust into a set play. Better to unravel this business before swallowin' bait. That cow is just one small item in some damned sight bigger plan of things."

      The trail reached a crest and a blank wall of trees. At right angles to it ran a broader alley through the forest—the north and south Henry trail. Denver halted and put an ear against the wind. After several moments he left the saddle and ran his hands across the earth, feeling innumerable churned indentations of travel. Not yet satisfied, he retreated a distance on the Sweet Creek trace, got a match, and knelt close to the earth; the exploding flare of light broke the pall but a brief instant and was whipped out, yet in that length of time he had seen cattle and pony tracks mixed together.

      Crouched there he made his judgment. "They went toward Copperhead the other night, took a bunch of stock and brought it back here. They're up yonder in some lonesome and godforsaken hole right now. Lorn Rue got too close to that spot, was killed, and packed off. Now if I could poke my way into that mess—"

      He threw the inclination aside and resumed his saddle, striking north on the Henry trail. Forty-five minutes later he came down a slashed hillside and was met by a few dull lights shining out of grotesquely huddled buildings. Presently he had arrived at the end of a curving street along which eight or nine forlorn and shaken structures faced each other, each seeming about to slide off the steep slope. This was the Wells, once a flush mining camp but now the nest of malcontents. A dreary, evil spot with a pervading gloom hanging over it. Denver's eyes roamed the street, seeing shadows detach themselves from odd apertures and slide off. Pressing his lips together, he aimed in, arrived at a breast-high porch and stepped over to it. Out of cracked and grimy windows flickered dim lights, and through a set of swinging doors floated a mixture of harsh sounds and unlovely smells. The sounds began to fall off, chairs scraped, and somebody ran across a squeaking floor. When he pushed the doors aside a still, quiet scene was before him.

      He never previously had paid the Wells a visit; nor was he prepared for the drab, lackluster sullenness of this saloon. All lights were pitched low, and the flutter of untrimmed wicks gave to the fetid, smoke-ridden atmosphere a palpitating uneasiness. A long bar ran across one end of the room; the rest of it held a stove, many chairs, and a few decrepit tables. In this space Denver's swift observation noted about thirty people, a half dozen of which were women. And behind the bar stood a coal-black giant whose palms pressed the weight of his torso downward on the mahogany while he blinked at Denver. One of the women laughed, the sound like a slap in Denver's face. He stepped aside and spoke to the barkeep.

      "Send for Redmain."

      The barkeep held his answer for a long, insolent minute. "He ain't here."

      "You lie," said Denver evenly. "His horse stands outside. Send for him."

      "If you know so much, go get him y'self, mister."

      "Tell him Dave Denver is down here and proposes to see him."

      The barkeep held his tongue. A girl slipped quietly out of a door, and such was the silence that the noise of her heels going up some invisible stairway echoed blankly back. The thick, miasmatic breath of hostility rose all around him; he saw their eyes glittering on him, he saw the predatory hunger of their desire. Yet they said nothing and he stood posted against the wall until another door opened and Lou Redmain came quietly in.

      "Glad to see you, Dave," said the man, triangular face blurred in the haze.

      "I reckon this is the chief's palace and these gentlemen and ladies his principal people," observed Denver.

      Redmain let the bite of that sarcasm go by unnoticed. "For my purpose," said he softly, "they do me very well."

      "One of 'em didn't," stated Denver, an increasing chill in his words. "One of them ran a misbranded Fee cow onto my range and made a bad job of it. He's of no further use to you."

      The room began to rustle with repressed talk. "Bury the fool, and I'll do you a return favor some day," said Redmain, still unmoved.

      Some of the heedless, reckless anger rose again in Denver. "Am I to understand you're accepting the responsibility for that act, Redmain?"

      Redmain moved across the room. "Listen, Dave," he answered: "there are considerable people who'd like to see either one of us out of the road. Be pretty easy, wouldn't it, for any such person to rig a thing like this?"

      "He was your man."

      "And if he was alive I'd kill him!" exclaimed Redmain, letting go. The slim body swayed. "I gave you my word in Sundown I'd stay clear of you! I meant that!"

      "It was a Fee cow," added Denver.

      Redmain's face shifted expression rapidly.

      "Don't miss much, do you? Well, what if I have got some Fee cows? I ain't got all of them. That critter could have come from any other direction as well as from my territory."

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