CHAPTER XXV—KEATS LOOKS FOR “SQUINT”

Neil Norton had been attending to Taylor’s affairs in Dawes during the latter’s illness, and he had ridden to the Arrow this morning to discuss with Taylor a letter he had received—for Taylor—from a Denver cattle buyer. The inquiry was for Herefords of certain markings and quality, and Norton could give the buyer no information. So Norton had come to Taylor for the information.

“The herd is grazing in the Kelso Basin,” Taylor told Norton. Norton knew the Kelso Basin was at least fifteen miles distant from the Arrow ranchhouse—a deep, wide valley directly west, watered by the same river that flowed near the Arrow ranchhouse.

“I can’t say, offhand, whether we’ve got what your Denver man wants.” He grinned at Norton, adding: “But it’s a fine morning for a ride, and I haven’t done much riding lately. I’ll go and take a look.”

“I’ll be looking, too,” declared Norton. “The _Eagle_ forms are ready for the press, and there isn’t much to do.”

Later, Taylor, mounted on Spotted Tail, and Norton on a big, rangy sorrel, the two men rode away. Taylor stopped at the horse corral gate long enough to tell Bud Hemmingway, who was replacing a bar, that he and Norton were riding to the Kelso Basin.

And there was one other to whom he had spoken—when he had gone into the house to buckle on his cartridge-belt and pistols, just before he went out to saddle Spotted Tail. It was the girl who had tantalized him while they had been sitting on the rock. She had not spoken frivolously to him inside the house; instead, she had gravely warned him to be “careful;” that his wounds might bother him on a long ride—and that she didn’t want him to suffer a relapse. And she watched him as he and Norton rode away, following the dust-cloud that enveloped them until it vanished into the mists of distance. Then she turned from the door with a sigh, thinking of the fate that had made her dependent upon the charity of the man she loved.

To Bud Hemmingway, working at the corral gate about an hour following the departure of Taylor and Norton, there came an insistent demand to look toward Dawes. It was merely one of those absurd impulses founded upon a whim provoked by self-manufactured presentiment—but Bud looked. What he saw caused him to stand erect and stare hard at the trail between Mullarky’s cabin and the Arrow—for about two miles out came a dozen or more riders, their horses traveling fast.

For several seconds Bud watched intently, straining his eyes in an effort to distinguish something about the men that would make their identity clear. And then he dropped the hammer he had been working with and ran to the bunkhouse, where he put on his cartridge-belt and pistol.

Returning to the bunkhouse door, he stood in it for a time, watching the approaching men. Then he scowled, muttering:

“It’s that damned Keats an’ some of his bunch! What in hell are they wantin’ at the Arrow?”

Bud was standing near the edge of the front gallery when Keats and his men rode up. There were fourteen of the men, and, like their leader, they were ill-visaged, bepistoled.

Marion Harlan had heard the noise of their approach, and she had come to the front door. She stood in the opening, her gaze fixed inquiringly upon the riders, though chiefly upon Keats, whose manner proclaimed him the leader. He looked at Bud.

“Hello, Hemmingway!” he greeted, gruffly. “I take it the outfit ain’t in?”

“Workin’, Kelso,” returned Bud. Bud’s gaze at Keats was belligerent; he resented the presence of Keats and the men at the Arrow, for he had never liked Keats, and he knew the relations between the visitor and Taylor were strained almost to the point of open antagonism.

“What’s eatin’ you guys?” demanded Bud.

“Plenty!” stated Keats importantly. He turned to the men.

“Scatter!” he commanded; “an’ rustle him up, if he’s anywhere around! Hey!” he shouted at a slender, rat-faced individual. “You an’ Darbey search the house! Two more of you take a look at the bunkhouse—and the rest of you nose around the other buildin’s. Keep your eyes peeled, an’ if he goes to gettin’ fresh, plug him plenty!”

“Why, what is wrong?” demanded Marion. Her face was pale with indignation, for she resented the authoritative tone used by Keats as much as she resented the thought of the two men entering the house unbidden.

Keats’s face flamed with sudden passion. With a snap of his wrist he drew his gun and trained its muzzle on Bud.

“Wrong enough!” he snapped. He was looking at Bud while answering Miss Harlan’s question. “I’m after Squint Taylor, an’ I’m goin’ to get him—that’s all! An’ if you folks go to interferin’ it’ll be the worse for you!”

Marion stiffened and braced herself in the doorway, her eyes wide with dread and her lips parted to ask the question that Bud now spoke, his voice drawling slightly with sarcasm.

“Taylor, eh?” he said. “What you wantin’ with Taylor?”

“I’m wantin’ him for murderin’ Larry Harlan!” snapped Keats.

Bud gulped, drew a deep breath and went pale. He looked at Marion, and saw that the girl was terribly moved by Keats’s words. But neither the girl nor Bud spoke while Keats dismounted, crossed the porch, and stopped in front of the door, which was barred by the girl’s body.

“Get out of the way—I’m goin’ in!” ordered Keats.

The girl moved aside to let him pass, and as he crossed the threshold she asked, weakly:

“How do you—how do they know Mr. Taylor killed Larry Harlan?”

Keats turned on her, grinning mirthlessly.

“How do we know anything?” he jeered. “Evidence—that’s what—an’ plenty of it!”

Keats vanished inside, and Bud, his eyes snapping with the alert glances he threw around him, slowly backed away from the porch toward the stable. As he turned, after backing several feet, he saw Marion walk slowly to a rocker that stood on the porch, drop weakly into it and cover her face with her hands.

Gaining the stable, Bud worked fast; throwing a saddle and bridle upon King, the speediest horse in the Arrow outfit, excepting Spotted Tail.

With movements that he tried hard to make casual, but with an impatience that made his heart pound heavily, he got King out and led him to the rear of the stable.

Some of Keats’s men were running from one building to another; but he was not Taylor, and they seemed to pay no attention to him, beyond giving him sharp glances.

Passing behind the blacksmith-shop, Bud heard a voice saying:

“Dead or alive, Keats says; an’ they’d admire to have him dead. I heard Carrington tellin’ Keats!”

As the sound of the voice died away, Bud touched King’s flank with the spurs. The big horse, after a day in the stable, was impatient and eager for a run, and he swept past the scattered buildings of the ranch with long, swift leaps that took him out upon the plains before Keats could complete his search of the first floor of the house.

The two men who had searched the upper floor came downstairs, to meet Keats in the front room. They grimly shook their heads at Keats, and at his orders went outside to search with the other men.

Keats stepped to the door, saw Marion sitting limply in the rocking-chair, her shoulders convulsed with sobs, and crossed to her, shaking her with a brutal arm.

“Where’s that guy I left standin’ there? Where’s he—Hemmingway?”

“I don’t know,” said the girl dully.

Keats cursed and ran to the edge of the porch. With his gaze sweeping the buildings, the pasture, the corrals, and the wide stretch of plain westward, he stiffened, calling angrily to his men:

“There he goes—damn him! It’s that sneakin’ Bud Hemmingway, an’ he’s gone to tell Taylor we’re after him! He knows where Taylor is! Get your hosses!”

Forced to her feet by the intense activity that followed Keats’s loudly bellowed orders, the girl crossed the porch, and from a point near the end railing watched Keats and his men clamber into their saddles and race after Bud. For a long time she watched them—a tiny blot gliding over the plains, followed by a larger blot—and then she walked slowly to the rocking-chair, looked down at it as though its spaciousness invited her; then she turned from it, entered the house, and going to her room—where Martha was sleeping—began feverishly throwing her few belongings into the small handbag she had brought with her from the big house.