The Max Brand Megapack. Max Brand
the difference ain’t as much as a split-second watch would catch, but it may mean that one feller passes out and the other goes on.”
They lay half facing each other, each with his head pillowed on an arm.
“By Jove! lucky we reached this shelter before the rain came.”
“Yep. A couple of hours of this and the rivers will be up—may take up all day to get back to the ranch if we have to ride up to the ford on the Saverack.”
“Then we’ll swim ’em.”
The other smiled drily.
“Swim the Saverack when she’s up? No, lad, we won’t do that.”
“Then I’ll have to work it alone, I suppose. You see, I have that date in Eldara for tomorrow night.”
Nash set his teeth, to choke back the cough. He produced papers and tobacco, rolled a cigarette with lightning speed, lighted it, and inhaled a long puff.
“Sure, you ought to keep that date, but maybe Sally would wait till the night after.”
“She impressed me, on the whole, as not being of the waiting kind.”
“H-m! A little delay does ’em good; gives ’em a chance to think.”
“Why, every man has his own way with women, I suppose, but my idea is, keep them busy—never give them a chance to think. If you do, they generally waste the chance and forget you altogether.”
Another coughing spell overtook Nash and left him frowning down at the glowing end of his butt.
“She ain’t like the rest.”
“I wonder?” mused the Easterner.
He had an infinite advantage in this duel of words, for he could watch from under the shadow of his long, dark lashes the effect of his speeches on the cowboy, yet never seem to be looking. For he was wondering whether the enmity of Nash, which he felt as one feels an unknown eye upon him in the dark, came from their rivalry about the girl, or from some deeper cause. He was inclined to think that the girl was the bottom of everything, but he left his mind open on the subject.
And Nash, pondering darkly and silently, measured the strength of the slender stranger and felt that if he were the club the other was the knife which made less sound but might prove more deadly. Above all he was conscious of the Easterner’s superiority of language, which might turn the balance against him in the ear of Sally Fortune. He dropped the subject of the girl.
“You was huntin’ over on the old place on the other side of the range?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty fair run of game?”
“Rather.”
“I think you said something about Logan?”
“Did I? I’ve been thinking a good deal about him. He gave me the wrong tip about the way to Eldara. When I get back to the old place—”
“Well?”
The other smiled unpleasantly and made a gesture as if he were snapping a twig between his hands.
“I’ll break him in two.”
The eyes of Nash grew wide with astonishment; he was remembering that same phrase on the lips of the big, grey man, Drew.
He murmured: “That may give you a little trouble. Logan’s a peaceable chap, but he has his record before he got down as low as sheepherdin’.”
“I like trouble—now and then.”
A pause.
“Odd old shack over there.”
“Drew’s old house?”
“Yes. There’s a grave in front of it.”
“And there’s quite a yarn inside the grave.”
The cowpuncher was aware that the other stirred—not much, but as if he winced from a drop of cold water; he felt that he was close on the trail of the real reason why the Easterner wished to see Drew.
“A story about Drew’s wife?”
“You read the writing on the headstone, eh?”
“‘Joan, she chose this place for rest,’” quoted Bard.
“That was all before my time; it was before the time of any others in these parts, but a few of the grey-beards know a bit about the story and I’ve gathered a little of it from Drew, though he ain’t much of a talker.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
Sensitively aware of Bard, as a photographic plate is aware of light on exposures, the cowpuncher went on with the tale.
And Bard, his glance probing among the shadowy rafters of the room, seemed to be searching there for the secret on whose trail he rode. Through the interims the rain crashed and volleyed on the roof above them; the cold spray whipped down on them through the cracks; the wind shook and rattled the crazy house; and the drawling voice of Nash went on and on.
CHAPTER XX
JOAN
“Them were the days when this was a man’s country, which a man could climb on his hoss with a gun and a rope and touch heaven and hell in one day’s ridin’. Them good old days ain’t no more. I’ve heard the old man tell about ’em. Now they’ve got everybody stamped and branded with law an’ order, herded together like cattle, ticketed, done for. That’s the way the range is now. The marshals have us by the throat. In the old days a sheriff that outlived his term was probably crooked and runnin’ hand in hand with the long-riders.”
“Long-riders?” queried Bard.
“Fellers that got tired of workin’ and took to ridin’ for their livin’. Mostly they worked in little gangs of five and six. They was called long-riders, I guess, partly because they was in the saddle all the time, and partly because they done their jobs so far apart. They’d ride into Eldara and blow up the safe in the bank one day, for instance, and five days later they’d be two hundred and fifty miles away stoppin’ a train at Lewis Station.
“They never hung around no one part of the country and that made it hard as hell to run ’em down—that and because they had the best hosses that money could buy. They had friends, too, strung out all over—squatters and the like of that. They’d drop in on these little fellers and pass ’em a couple of twenties and make themselves solid for life. Afterward they used ’em for stoppin’ places.
“They’d pull off a couple of hold-ups, then they’d ride off to one of these squatter places and lay up for ten days, maybe, drinkin’ and feedin’ up themselves and their hosses. That was the only way they was ever caught. They was killed off by each other, fighting about the split-up, or something like that.
“But now and then a gang held together long enough to raise so much hell that they got known from one end of the range to the other. Mostly they held together because they had a leader who knew how to handle ’em and who kept ’em under his thumb. That was the way with old Piotto.
“He had five men under him. They was all hell-benders who had ridden the range alone and had their share of fights and killings, which there wasn’t one of ’em that wouldn’t have been good enough to go leader in any other crew, but they had to knuckle under to old Piotto. He was a great gunman and he was pretty good in scheming up ways of dodging the law and picking the best booty. He had these five men, and then he had his daughter, Joan. She was better’n two ordinary men herself.
“Three years that gang held together and got rich—fair rich. They made it so fast they couldn’t even gamble the stuff away. About a thousand times, I guess posses went out after Piotto, but they never came back with a trace of ’em; they never got within shootin’ distance. Finally Piotto got so confident that he started raidin’ ranches and carryin’ off members of well-off