Gold Room for a session of poker. After a few minutes Jim Chaffee decided to follow and sit in. On the verge of leaving, a light voice struck a chill right up the middle of his back.
"Are you getting discouraged?"
Gay Thatcher was beside him, her partner lingering a few yards distant. Jim took off his hat, and a slow smile spread around his eyes. "I have known folks to introduce themselves."
"It might save time," said the girl. "Your name is Jim Chaffee. I believe I've heard it before. My name is Gay Thatcher."
"Yes ma'am. I know it."
"Well, we're introduced. I liked your ride."
"I'm obliged. I wish I could ask the favor of a dance."
"People," said she irrelevantly, "have said you were a man of courage."
"You don't know what sort of a dancer I am," he replied. "I'd better leave good enough alone."
"This is none of my business, Mr. Chaffee, but I overheard your friends say that you had some trouble with your ranch. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. Really."
"I kind of hated to lose that place. It's right by a creek and there's cottonwoods around it. I built a log house right where I could see the peaks. Sort of hate to lose it. A man gets his heart set on something. But"—and he raised his arms Indian fashion—"I've always been able to earn wages."
"You're not going to try it again?" she asked, almost severe.
"Next spring, higher on the bench." He switched the subject. "Ma'am, is it just a visit you're makin'?"
"Oh, yes. I am going back."
He looked down, marking the beauty of her dark hair and the rose color of her cheeks. He had never seen a woman with so clear and expressive a face; nor one so intelligent. "I'm sorry," said he. "My luck runs bad in bunches."
She saw that her partner was moving restlessly, so she started away. A rare smile came to her eyes. "I am going back. But I've decided not to go right back; I'll be in town for a week. Or else on Mr. Woolfridge's ranch."
"Well," he began, and didn't know just exactly how to finish.
"Well," she said, mimicking the sound. Then she was down the hall, dress flashing in the mellow light. At the turn she looked back and smiled again, a brilliant figure in the crowd. Jim Chaffee went toward the Gold Room, dissatisfied. "I didn't say at all what I wanted to say. What's the matter with me?"
Dad Satterlee was deep in a game and at the moment hoisting a bet made by the glum and pallid gambler who had the previous night played so heavily. The strain seemed to be bothering his nerves, for his long, slender fingers drummed the table. But Dad Satterlee was as stolid as a rock, his red and homely face puckered over the cards. He called and lost the bet to the gambler; and relaxed, appearing amused. Woolfridge shouldered through the crowd and bent over Satterlee, whispering.
"No—no, I told you I ain't going to be bothered any more with that nonsense. I ain't got a price to set. Never did have one, never will. Cut it out, son."
Woolfridge reared back and went rapidly from the room. Jim Chaffee turned to watch Woolfridge; at that instant there was a smashing report at the table. He jerked about and saw Dad Satterlee's whole countenance suffused with anger, his big fist covering the cards. He pawed through them, lifted one and another to the light and set his eyes close against the backs. The pallid gambler was half out of his chair. Satterlee took the whole deck and threw it full in the mans face. And he knocked everything aside in the bull-like uprisal.
"I thought you was crooked! The last five decks you produced are all marked the same! Yore a damn tinhorn gambler, mister!"
"I resent that!" cried the pallid one.
"Resent?" roared Satterlee. "Listen! This is a white mans country! Gentlemen play poker hereabouts, not card sharps! Get out of this place, get out of my sight! I've been watchin yore style plenty long and I've plumb paid for the privilege o' exposin' you! You be out of this country by to-morrow mornin' or I'll personally see you run out!"
"I resent that!" repeated the man. "I will not allow any man—"
"Get out!"
The gambler looked about him and found no comfort. The crowd, without inspecting the cards, instantly took Satterlee's words; for Satterlee was a blunt and certain man. So the gambler, as white as death and quite shaken, disappeared into the bar. Satterlee growled like an angry bear. "Who invited that sharp to play in this hotel?" Then he saw Jim Chaffee. "I'm goin' home, Jim. You ready to ride?"
"Yeah."
"Meet you here in ten minutes," muttered Satterlee. He cruised through the lobby and to the street. Jim idly followed. What had happened to the gambler? On the porch of the hotel he pondered a moment, shaking his head. Suddenly he sprang to life, running toward the stable where Satterlee had gone for his horse.
"I'm a blamed idiot for leavin' him—"
A shot roared out of the stable's mouth; a shot and a solitary cry. Jim Chaffee raced onward. Men poured into the stable before him. A lantern bobbed through the air. And before he got to the place he heard a single, gruff sentence. It hit him like the impact of a bullet and left him with a sensation of physical sickness.
"Satterlee. He's dead."
V. JIM GETS A JOB
Jim Chaffee's thoughts shot far ahead of the catastrophe; out of the recesses of his mind came pouring all those stray side lights, all those significant gestures and stray words and puzzling circumstances that had caught his attention during the last twenty-four hours in town. Mack Moran raced by him, bound for the stable, gun half raised and crying: "Come on, Jim, we got to get the—" The rest of that sentence was passionately lurid. Yet Jim Chaffee remained rooted. Mystery and vengeance beat heavily along the dark reaches of the stable. Maybe the gambler Clyde had killed Satterlee in the heat of a quarrel but a few moments gone. Maybe, but there were others in Roaring Horse to be accounted for as well. Accounted for now, instantly. He doubled back to the hotel, shouldering roughly through a gathering crowd. He ran across the porch and into the Gold Room. Nobody there; but when he reached the doorway leading to the hotel bar he found the gambler downing a stiff glass of whisky. The man's face was as pale as ivory, and his eyes were wide and brilliant against the light. He shoved the empty glass across the bar, knuckles white with pressure. He was fighting his nerves, Chaffee saw that. And when the gambler discovered Chaffee watching him he threw back his head like some cornered animal.
"Where you been?" challenged Chaffee.
"None of your damn' business!" snapped the gambler. "You're not putting me on any cross!"
"He came in here from the side door like a shot out of a gun," accused the barkeep, heavy and foreboding. "What happened?"
The gambler turned away and went rapidly up a set of stairs leading from the bar to the second story of the hotel.
"You better get that dude now if yuh want him," warned the barkeep.
But Jim Chaffee was already leaving the place. "He'll be there when we want him. He can't get out of the hotel." Down the street he ran, aiming for the Red Mill saloon. Everybody seemed to be collecting in the stable; inside the Red Mill was but one man—the owner.
"Callahan, was Theodorik Perrine in here when that shot was fired?"
The owner shifted a cigar in his mouth and studied Chaffee with a surly regard. "Why should I be tellin' what my customers do?"
"I'm askin' you once more," snapped Chaffee. "Your reputation ain't any too sweet to buck this affair."
"I ain't beholden to you!" cried Callahan. "I ain't beholden to the Stirrup S outfit none whatsoever! You go plumb straight—"
Chaffee smiled bleakly. "I'll give you a last chance.