to destruction? This was possible, though it seemed queer to Denver that Steele would let himself easily into a trap. Steele had lived in the country long enough to understand all the tricks.
But over and above all these speculations one unexplainable fact kept jarring every probable hypothesis. Steele had gone off without help, without confiding in another. And he had gone off in a seriously upset frame of mind. Only a disturbance of major import could have placed that pallor and those lines on the easy- going man's cheeks. Each time Denver reverted to that final scene at the dance he was conscious of a strange chill, a premonition of evil. His mind beat against the black curtain of uncertainty. For a brief instant that curtain slipped aside, and Denver caught sight of something that repelled and hardened him. He ripped out an oath. Lyle Bonnet forged beside him swiftly.
"See somethin'?"
But Denver shook his head and set his jaws. He pulled himself away from his painful thinking and with visible effort concentrated his senses on the tangible world about him. He experienced a sudden dread at allowing himself to tamper with that concealing curtain again.
Lyle Bonnet was once more beside him. "You goin' to smash right down, Dave? Or put a ring around 'em?"
Only then did Denver realize the full absorption of his thoughts. He had covered five rugged miles almost sightlessly. They were in a widening bay of the pines, a bay that entered a scarred hillside clearing. And over there, slumbering under the full sun, were the unlovely buildings of the Wells. Nothing moved in the street, By common consent the party halted.
"Looks a little fishy to me," observed Bonnet. "Too damned deserted. I'd hate to run into a pour of lead."
"Not even no smoke from the chimbleys," observed Hominy Hogg.
Denver's nerves tightened, an acute clarity came to all his senses. In that lull of time every detail of the sagging buildings, the frowzy street, the scarred hillside registered indelibly on his brain. He actually felt the quality of suspended, breathless silence emanating from the place and the almost animate glare of the windows facing him.
Denver made his disposition of forces quickly. "You take half your men, Hominy, and circle for the top of that hillside. Then walk out of the trees and straight down. Lyle and six others will go to the right, curve clear around, and get set to come into the street from that end. I'll wait here. Hominy's got the longest trip. When he rides to view, the rest of us start accordingly."
Hominy wanted to be absolutely sure of Denver's intent. "In case they don't quite make up their minds to fight or be peaceable, what's our cue?"
"If Redmain's yonder," said Denver, "there can be no question what he'll do. He's burned his bridges and cut himself off. Nothing left for him but fight it out."
"But in case—"
"There ain't any other answer, for him or for us," broke in Denver with sudden impatience. "Get going!"
The two parties filed through the trees; Denver waited with cold patience. He had come to the Wells once before, ready to cast up accounts. Lou Redmain had spoken softly, calling upon his given word as a mark of friendship, yet all the while meaning not a syllable of it. This day there would be none of that. The outlaw chief had forfeited the right to make a promise. There remained no solitary rule of human conduct by which he might establish his faith. He had nothing left but his jungle instincts, plus that lusting spark of domination that at once made him far more dangerous than any other beast of prey. For, while the lower animals obeyed the inevitable cycle of their kind, a renegade man obeyed only his own impulses, and it was impossible to tell what these impulses might be from hour to hour.
The stark barrenness of the town challenged Denver's watchful eyes. Methodically he swept every corner, every rubbish pile, every shaded crevice. Some doors were shut, some swung ajar. The street seemed cleared for ambush, yet if Redmain were hidden there, no sign or portent rose to warn Denver. As he considered this he looked aside and found Hominy's men advancing from the high trees. At once he gathered his reins and walked into the clearing, the following men spreading fan-wise to either side of him. Hominy accelerated the pace and deployed his party to command the Wells from behind. Lyle Bonnet, having less room to maneuver on the far side of town, elected to speed up and so reached the street in advance of the others. Denver spurred by the first building and jumped to the high porch of the saloon. Watchfulness gave way. He yelled suddenly. "Spread out! Smash down the doors! Don't bunch up!" And he plunged into the saloon one pace ahead of Lyle Bonnet, gun lifted to debate his entry. The oncoming riders carried him a dozen feet before he hauled short, surprised at what he found.
There was no opposition, no renegades ranked along the walls. Behind the bar the black giant lolled, saying nothing. A dozen oldish men and six or seven women clustered sullenly at the far end of the place and stared back with apathetic hatred. Half expecting trickery, he turned about. But he could hear the others of his party running from building to building, calling down their signals. Hominy roared a savage challenge. "Where is that skunk-stinkin' pirate? Knock hell out o' the joint!" A woman laughed, shrill and scornful.
"You better get up earlier in the mornin' to find anybody here, Mister Denver!"
He swung on the drab group. "Well, where are they?"
"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" retorted the woman. "Go and find out!"
He aimed for a rear door, went through it at a stride, and found himself in a hall. A stairway climbed to dim upper regions. Bonnet and a few others pursued him.
"Careful," muttered Bonnet; "this is a damned fine slaughterin' pen!"
Denver struck the banister with his gun barrel and listened to the echo run blankly through upper emptiness. That seemed to convince him. He sprang along the stairs three at a time, arrived at the second-floor landing, and saw more doors yawning into a hall. His men filed in either direction covering these dingy rooms One room at the end seemed larger than the rest, and Denver went in. The bed was made, and a trunk and some personal effects indicated occupancy, but from the open bureau drawers and the scattered tills of the trunk he guessed what Redmain had done.
"They've scattered," he told the incoming Bonnet. "Took their travelin' gear and departed. Redmain knows he never would be safe a minute with this for headquarters."
He dropped the top of the trunk and stared at the "L. R." burned in the wood ribs. Bonnet found grim amusement in that. "The high card's own private roost, uh? By golly, he'll sleep in harder places than this from now on."
Denver only heard part of his foreman's comment. He had found half of a book page tacked to the wall with this fragment of verse on it:
Into this Universe, and Why Not Knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
Denver ripped the page from the wall and crushed it in his blackened fist. "The poor condemned fool! What couldn't a man like that do with a drop of honest blood in his veins? Don't tell me he can't tell what's right and what's wrong. He knows the difference. He'll travel the crooked trail with fire in his heart just because he knows the difference too damned well! And there's the fellow who's going to be hunted like a rat, shot at, starved, brought to stand, and knocked over! He knows better!"
A woman came, breathless and defiant, to the door; the same one who had scorned him. There was still a trace of prettiness about her. "Can't you keep your dirty hands off his things?" she cried. "Get out of here! You'll never catch Lou Redmain by prowling through his trunk! Leave it alone."
"It's your room, too, ma'm?" asked Denver.
"Well, what if it is?"
"My apologies," said Denver gravely. "I don't make it a habit of enterin' a lady's room. Not even if it's about to be destroyed." He passed her and went down the stairs.
She followed him. "What's the meaning of that?"
He crossed the saloon hall again and found Hominy waiting, morose and restless. "Well, they ain't here, that's plumb clear. What about