I'll be a clam."
"All right—I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms.
Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had to come down and saddle the latter's mount.
He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat stamp.
This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung again to the saddle, and continued on his way.
The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand something that clicked.
Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like tempered steel.
"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty."
Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?"
"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this one, to save you trouble."
He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie.
For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve to pit himself against such a man as this.
"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly.
"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is between us two. It won't go any further."
Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the hill and disappeared.
Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of one who lives much alone.
"There's a nice young man—yellow clear through. Queer thing she could ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against the acid test, then."
His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks.
"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is headed for the pen mighty fast."
He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself.
Chapter XIV
A Difference of Opinion
Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him pass the time.
This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed prints on the walls—cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were circumscribed by the purse limitation.
Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr Song."
I know by the stir of the branches,
The way she went;
And at times I can see where a stem
Of the grass is bent.
She's the secret and light of my life,
She allures to elude;
But I follow the spell of her beauty,
Whatever the mood.
"Knows what he's talking about—some poet, that fellow," Buck cried aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost in his discovery.
It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza.
"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No risk at all, looks to me."
With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being seen.
The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, and went back to reading.
The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again puffing in pleasant serenity.
Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar.
Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he must have been up in a balloon.
The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat had reached the powder.
By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices.
"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin.
The fat was surely in the fire now.
Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply.
Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher known as Cuffs. All of them were armed.
"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked.
"So you're here, are you?" spoke