weak and his will relaxed. Otherwise it never would have happened. But the next moment he had drawn her tightly against him, murmuring some choked phrase, and he had kissed her. She was as still as death. He felt both hands resting lightly on his shoulders, and the throb of her heart swelled against his chest. Then she swayed, the pressure breaking the spell. He dropped his arms, a fury of self-reproach blazing on his lean face.
"If I had a gun, Gay, I'd ask you to take a shot at me!"
Her eyes were brilliant; she had caught her upper lip between her teeth as if to suppress the tears. And she studied Jim Chaffee as no other woman had ever studied him before. "You—you have nothing to be sorry for, Jim. Nothing! That was my reward and I'll always remember it."
"I'm God's own fool."
"You are the finest gentleman I have ever known," said she. Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "But—I wish you had asked me some questions first. Oh, Jim, I have wanted you to ask them for so long a time. Good-bye, my dear."
He held himself up to the chair, still struggling with self- condemnation. The girl said nothing more. Slipping from the room she half ran down the stairs and out to the street. The stage was waiting in front of the hotel, and she caught up her grip and started to climb inside. A puncher idled across the street, and her attention, struck by something familiar, dwelt on him. Poised on the coach step she beckoned to him.
"Aren't you a Stirrup S man?"
"Was, ma'am. Ain't no Stirrup S any more."
"What are you doing here?"
"Jus' a-roamin'."
"Go up to room twenty-one. Jim Chaffee is there."
The puncher omitted a wild yip and plunged through the door. She heard him pounding along the stairs and she heard him yelling Chaffee's name. Then she settled inside the coach and a moment later was bound south for the railroad. There was nobody else traveling this morning; and so she could freely cry. Which she did.
Red Corcoran—that was the name of the ex-Stirrup S puncher—rolled an endless number of cigarettes and pumped Chaffee bone dry. Throughout the story he interjected amazing epithets. "Th' hell!" "Oh, the dirty Dion-eyed dawgs!" "Jim, yore a-makin' me inhuman an' impervious to charitable sentiments." "An' so the gal pulls yuh outen the hole? Say, I'd marry a woman for lessn' that."
"How about Locklear's white savages?"
"Shucks, they wasn't paid by Locklear, Jim. Ain't it clear by now? They was imported by Woolfridge. He's the main squeeze. Well, they've mostly went away. Couple-three-four left. They did the job, didn't they? Guess Woolfridge thinks so. Got a reason to think so. A flea can't even bite in Roarin' Horse 'less he gets orders from Woolfridge. Oh, it's a turrible mess. Stirrup S gone. Half dozen other outfits along the rim gone. Some old-timers left, but they ain't doin' no arguin'. Woolfridge has done put his moniker on a flock of buildin's. He did it dirty, but he did it. And what's anybody goin' to do about it? Nothin'."
"Where's Perrine?"
"Sashayin' around the country lookin' for yuh. As far as yore concerned they got the bee on yuh."
"I guess," agreed Chaffee. "But with all those hired plugs gone it wouldn't be so hard to buck Woolfridge and Locklear. Red, how many of the gang do you figger you could collect in ten days?"
The puncher brightened. "Fight? Why, I guess pretty close to twenty if I rode hard enough."
"Think they'll back me up in any play I make?"
"What yuh think we are?" was Corcoran's indignant rejoinder, "a pack uh yella pups? Shore! Miz Satterlee cried when she paid us off. Now if that ain't enough to make us fight I guess nothin' would. Gimme my travelin' orders and I'll do the trick."
"I'm goin' back," said Chaffee, "to find the man that killed Satterlee. Ten days I lay on my back right here. You collect the gang. Tell 'em to meet me the night of the eighth at the old ranch. If it's occupied by strangers, then have 'em meet me on the south bank of Linderman's. Keep it strictly under your Stetson. Tell the boys to do the same. When we get started we work under cover and we put the fear of God in somebody's black heart. Get goin'. Red."
"I'm gone," said Red Corcoran, and hoisted himself toward the door. On the threshold he tarried. "Better stay under cover yoreself. Perrine or Woolfridge or Locklear might have friends here which'd squeal on yuh."
"I'm all right. You travel."
Corcoran had one more bright thought. "Say, that Gay Thatcher ain't difficult to glance upon. Not any. Ever think of—"
But Chaffee's face turned so black and unfriendly that Corcoran closed the door in haste and departed.
XVI. THE SHADOW OF CATASTROPHE
Gay reached the territorial capital twenty-four hours later, and after refreshing herself at the private lodging house where she maintained her fixed residence, went directly to the governor's quarters in the domed building that sat so serenely between sweeps of lawn and trees and commanded so many vistas of the town. The governor was deep in the early morning routine, but her name forwarded by a secretary instantly opened the inner door. The tall and sparse-membered gray warrior rose with a Southern courtesy and faced his fair lieutenant.
"I'd begun to worry a little about you, Miss Thatcher. Sit down. But you look fresh and competent. I would give all that I owned to have the vigor of your years once more. You've had breakfast? Well, take coffee with me. Sereno—send out to the restaurant for coffee and rolls for Miss Thatcher and myself. Now—business."
The governor of this territory was a pure and precious type of the bearded lawyer emigrant who had risen to influence through shrewd alliances and popular appeal. He was a political being down to the very roots; he fought his battles wholly on political premises. There was something of the glorified log roller about him. He knew every man, or almost every man, in the territory who could command more than a dozen followers; his mind was a card catalogue of names and faces, and no little of his power rose out of the ability to grip the hand of some obscure citizen and say in a booming, friendly voice: "Hello, Jeb Smith. Haven't seen you for eight years. How big is that baby boy now?" Yet because he used the old and commonplace methods it was no less true that the governor was a capable officer. He used whatever instruments he could to establish his purposes. And those purposes were worthy. The territory was proud of the governor; it never had a better one. He loved his friends in the good old-fashioned way, and he fought his enemies to the last bloody political ditch also in the good old-fashioned way. Such was the chief to whom Gay Thatcher reported. And to him, over the hot coffee, she rendered her report. At the end of it she added an irrelevant thought. "I'm afraid I am giving you only hearsay or only what I saw. You would have been better served, perhaps, if you had sent a man."
"No such thing," was the governor's hearty denial. "Give me the privilege of knowing what I wanted done. You have done it. Admirably. A man might have cross-examined some of those folks. Might have listened at keyholes. I didn't want that. What I wanted was a bystander's report. So friend William is up to mischief? Went out to his desert tent and brooded over this fine scheme. William is a dangerous critter. I never have any doubt about a horse that lays back his ears. That's honest meanness. But I do mightily dislike the bland-eyed brute that plays possum till you're off guard. That's William."
"Governor—how did you know he was up to anything?"
The man smiled. "I have lived a long time in public life and I have acquired a little of the serpent's wisdom. In politics, my dear girl, we credit nothing to our enemies and suspect everything of them. I like to have my foes, worthy and unworthy, near at hand where I can keep an eye on them. When they travel away from me I begin to worry over their welfare." He rose from the table and walked around the room, losing the humorously cynical attitude. His cheeks began to furrow up, his chin actually appeared to jut farther out, and a chill came to his blue-gray eyes. Piece by piece, the governor was mentally climbing into his armor.