The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

at the head of the table and amid a dead silence introduced her.

      "Boys, this is Christine Ballard of New York. She has come on a visit. Now, behave yourselves. I have already pointed out to her which of you are the lady killers. So beware."

      The charge was so manifestly outrageous that the agitation only increased; not a man raised his eyes from the dead centre of his plate. Lispenard came in and took his seat. Tom, quite cheerful, began to relate the salient points of the more outstanding members. "That's Quagmire. Yes, the one with the extremely guilty look. Oh, they all look guilty, but he seems to look guiltier than the rest. He has a wife in each state and territory between here and Texas, Montana excepted. The reason he has no wife in Montana is because he has never been to Montana. Whitey Almo, the one with the bad sunburn—or is that sunburn, Whitey?—collects interiors. Jail interiors. I have never known Whitey to pass a new jail without entering to see the wall decorations. Usually he doesn't pay much attention to these walls until the next morning, when his eyes begin to function again. Why did they cease to function, did you ask? Well, it has been rumoured that Whitey drinks water with his whisky. I'd shoot him like a dog if I thought it were the truth."

      There was the sound of somebody strangling in his coffee. Thirteen heads bent nearer the table; a knife dropped, and thirteen bodies started. Tom grinned affectionately. "I have probably the most completely assorted bunch of liars and scoundrels ever gathered under one roof. Quite possibly I shall be neatly shot in the back before break of day. Slim, it you stoop any lower you'll dye your moustache in that coffee cup. Oh, don't mention it. You're quite obliged."

      The proximity of a woman utterly ruined the meal; Tom Gillette's frank lies and pointing finger served to reduce them to a state from which air and solitude only could effect a recovery. The first to finish eating slunk out of the cabin with the countenance of one who hoped he wasn't watched but was sure the spotlight played upon him. Thus they departed; and presently from the corral came a high skirling of words from a man whose soul was in labour. Lispenard, who had been wrapped in his own thoughts throughout the affair, quietly left.

      Tom grinned. "It has taken me a long time to get even."

      "But what have they done to you?"

      "Nothing," he answered, rolling a cigarette. "No finer outfit ever rode. I love 'em like brothers. That's why I'm abusing 'em."

      The old cook slipped away with his pans; the lamplight strayed against the girl's soft face, accenting her utter femininity; she sat quite still, hands folded and seemingly placid. Yet beneath the surface a hundred cross-currents of thought ran free. The puzzle of this familiar yet so startling unfamiliar man was being attacked from a dozen different angles. She loved a conventional world, as all women do; even so, she could on occasion be both reckless and daring. Daring enough to tell Tom she had come west to plead her case—and then to hide the stark truth of it beneath those quick and subtle changes of spirit that were so much a part of her. It didn't matter what had changed her mind regarding him. She wasn't sure she knew why, or if she did know she refused to be truthful with herself. It didn't matter. What mattered was that, once having changed her mind, she meant to see the affair to the very end; to play the game with all the skill, all the shrewdness and impetuousness she owned. The shrewdness had always been a part of her, but the impetuousness was new, and born, perhaps, of the knowledge that she had made a mistake concerning Tom Gillette and that she grew no younger. It was even new enough to disturb her whole outlook upon life and to set her off on a trip half across the continent unchaperoned. And it was disturbing enough to have created in her one irrevocable decision: she would win back Tom Gillette if she could, surrendering as little as she must, but if parsimony failed then she was willing to throw every last coin and possession upon the table and say, "There it is, I will not haggle. Take it." That was the story of Christine Ballard, as much as it was given anyone, even herself, to know.

      The room grew cold with the coming of night. Gillette touched the kindling with a match, and she relaxed to the heat, one hand idly trailing over the chair arm. "That one—Quagmire—I thought was quaint."

      He shook his head. "Wrong word, Kit. Quagmire's been hurt so bad he couldn't cry. He's loyal down to the last drop of blood. A more scorching pessimism never came from the lips of a mortal, but that's only a false front to cover a heart as soft as a woman's."

      Silence a moment; the girl made another long detour and came to rest on a distant topic. "Tom, I remember once something you told me about what your father had said. When you left for the East. I've often wondered, often thought—something about a man's word."

      Gillette dropped the cigarette. Fine lines sprang along his face—a rugged face and handsome in a purely masculine fashion. There was a flash down in the deep wells of his eyes. And it took just such a shrewd observer as Christine Ballard to detect how he held back the upthrust of feeling; held it back so rigidly that his words were dry, almost bleak.

      "He told me always to remember that a man's word was a piece of the man himself and never to betray it."

      Of a sudden she rose. "I'm tired, Tommy. Do I sleep in front of the fire or up in the attic?"

      "Doctor's already put your possibles in my room." He went over and opened the bedroom door. Passing through, she turned and hesitated. The perfume of her clothing clung to his nostrils, and for one long moment he was carried back to the days of his schooling. Her arm fell against his shoulder. He kissed her; and then as the door closed, her tinkling, elusive laugh escaped through. "Au 'voir, Tommy. Are you quite sure you've buried all the old bones?"

      It was not for some time that he realized why she had brought up his father's remark about the word of a man. His fist struck the table resoundingly. "By God, I will not be stripped for torture again!"

      The cabin became too small to hold Kit Ballard and himself at the same time; he passed out, glancing up to the full, lemon- silver surface of the moon. The bunkhouse light cut a clear path across the river. Quagmire stepped athwart that pathway, advancing.

      "Hey, Tom. Yo' been ridin' to'rds that black butte to-day or yestidy?"

      "No. Why?"

      "Tracks," answered Quagmire succinctly. The tip of his cigarette made a crimson trail in the darkness. "Somebody's been havin' a look at our stuff. Question is, what for do they want to look?"

      "There's a fight coming up, Quagmire. We'll be one man against ten."

      Quagmire digested the remark. "Man is mortal. An' numbers don't mean nothin'. What yo' aimin' to do about it?"

      "Why, I told Grist I wasn't selling out," said Tom. "Starting to-morrow we'll keep a man hidden on top of that butte. Just to see what he can see. No use in being played for a sucker."

      "It was my idear, likewise," murmured Quagmire. "Then, of course, it might've been the tracks o' yo' friend."

      "Blondy? Yes, it might. He circles the country quite a bit. I'd better ask him."

      But Quagmire only brought up the supposition to introduce a new fact. "It mighta been him, but it wasn't Last three days runnin' he's travelled across the river." And after another long silence, he added an entirely unrelated and cryptic thought. "I hate a talebearer."

      Tom divined that Quagmire possessed information he wished to divulge and that it troubled both his habit of secrecy and his sense of loyalty. He could have made it no plainer he stood willing to speak if pressed. Gillette watched a cloud sail across the face of the moon. "Well, Quagmire when the clothes are all washed the dirt will come up. Let it ride like that."

      "Yeah," grunted Quagmire and turned toward the bunkhouse. Tom followed. Lispenard, he noted, already had rolled in.

      Exercising her prerogative, Christine Ballard slept through breakfast. Gillette, having business over on a corner of his range, carefully instructed the cook to keep a hot meal simmering until she rose. On his way out he met Lispenard. "Tell Kit I'll be back within two or three hours and we'll go for a trip round the place."

      "Good enough," agreed the man. He seemed extraordinarily quiet, on the borderland of one of his fits of sullen humour. Tom grinned. "What's the itch, Blondy? Dees she remind you of the fleshpots you