Essential Western Novels - Volume 10. Zane Grey

you're not known to the Rutherfords. You slip in over Wagon Wheel Gap to Huerfano Park, pick up what you can, and come out to Battle Butte with your news."

      "You mean—spy on them?"

      "Of coorse."

      "But what if they suspected me?"

      "Then your heirs at law would collect the insurance," Ryan told him composedly.

      Excuses poured out of young Beaudry one on top of another. "No, I can't go. I won't mix up in it. It's not my affair. Besides, I can't get away from my business."

      "I see your business keeps you jumping," dryly commented the Irishman. "And you know best whether it's your affair."

      Beaudry could have stood it better if the man had railed at him, if he had put up an argument to show why he must come to the aid of the friend who had helped him. This cool, contemptuous dismissal of him stung. He began to pace the room in rising excitement.

      "I hate that country up there. I've got no use for it. It killed my mother just as surely as it did my father. I left there when I was a child, but I'll never forget that dreadful day seventeen years ago. Sometimes I wake in bed out of some devil's nightmare and live it over. Why should I go back to that bloody battleground? Hasn't it cost me enough already? It's easy for you to come and tell me to go to Huerfano Park—"

      "Hold your horses, Mr. Beaudry. I'm not tellin' you to go. I've laid the facts before ye. Go or stay as you please."

      "That's all very well," snapped back the young man. "But I know what you'll think of me if I don't go."

      "What you'll think of yourself matters more. I haven't got to live with ye for forty years."

      Roy Beaudry writhed. He was sensitive and high-strung. Temperamentally he coveted the good opinion of those about him. Moreover, he wanted to deserve it. No man had ever spoken to him in just the tone of this little Irish cowpuncher, who had come out of nowhere into his life and brought to him his first big problem for decision. Even though the man had confessed himself a rustler, the young lawyer could not escape his judgment. Pat Ryan might have ridden on many lawless trails in his youth, but the dynamic spark of self-respect still burned in his soul. He was a man, every inch of his five-foot three.

      "I want to live at peace," the boy went on hotly. "Huerfano Park is still in the dark ages. I'm no gunman. I stand for law and order. This is the day of civilization. Why should I embroil myself with a lot of murderous outlaws when what I want is to sit here and make friends—?"

      The Irishman hammered his fist on the table and exploded. "Then sit here, damn ye! But why the hell should any one want to make friends with a white-livered pup like you? I thought you was Jack Beaudry's son, but I'll niver believe it. Jack didn't sit on a padded chair and talk about law and order. By God, no! He went out with a six-gun and made them. No gamer, whiter man ever strapped a forty-four to his hip. He niver talked about what it would cost him to go through for his friends. He just went the limit without any guff."

      Ryan jingled out of the room in hot scorn and left one young peace advocate in a turmoil of emotion.

      Young Beaudry did not need to discuss with himself the ethics of the situation. A clear call had come to him on behalf of the man who had been his best friend, even though he had never met him. He must answer that call, or he must turn his back on it. Sophistry would not help at all. There were no excuses his own mind would accept.

      But Royal Beaudry had been timid from his childhood. He had inherited fear. The shadow of it had always stretched toward him. His cheeks burned with shame to recall that it had not been a week since he had looked under the bed at night before getting in to make sure nobody was hidden there. What was the use of blinking the truth? He was a born coward. It was the skeleton in the closet of his soul. His schooldays had been haunted by the ghost of dread. Never in his life had he played truant, though he had admired beyond measure the reckless little dare-devils who took their fun and paid for it. He had contrived to avoid fights with his mates and thrashings from the teachers. On the one occasion when public opinion had driven him to put up his fists, he had been saved from disgrace only because the bully against whom he had turned proved to be an arrant craven.

      He remembered how he had been induced to go out and try for the football team at the university. His fellows knew him as a fair gymnast and a crack tennis player. He was muscular, well-built, and fast on his feet, almost perfectly put together for a halfback. On the second day of practice he had shirked a hard tackle, though it happened that nobody suspected the truth but himself. Next morning he turned in his suit with the plea that he had promised his aunt not to play.

      Now trepidation was at his throat again, and there was no escape from a choice that would put a label on him. It had been his right to play football or not as he pleased. But this was different. A summons had come to his loyalty, to the fundamental manhood of him. If he left David Dingwell to his fate, he could never look at himself again in the glass without knowing that he was facing a dastard.

      The trouble was that he had too much imagination. As a child he had conjured dragons out of the darkness that had no existence except in his hectic fancy. So it was now. He had only to give his mind play to see himself helpless in the hands of the Rutherfords.

      But he was essentially stanch and generous. Fate had played him a scurvy trick in making him a trembler, but he knew it was not in him to turn his back on Dingwell. No matter how much he might rebel and squirm he would have to come to time in the end.

      After a wretched afternoon he hunted up Ryan at his hotel.

      "When do you want me to start?" he asked sharply.

      The little cowpuncher was sitting in the lobby reading a newspaper. He took one look at the harassed youth and jumped up.

      "Say, you're all right. Put her there."

      Royal's cold hand met the rough one of Ryan. The shrewd eyes of the Irishman judged the other.

      "I knew youse couldn't be a quitter and John Beaudry's son," he continued. "Why, come to that, the sooner you start the quicker."

      "I'll have to change my name."

      "Sure you will. And you'd better peddle something—insurance, or lightning rods, or 'The Royal Gall'ry of Po'try 'n Art' or—"

      "'Life of the James and Younger Brothers.' That ought to sell well with the Rutherfords," suggested Roy satirically, trying to rise to the occasion.

      "Jess Tighe and Dan Meldrum don't need any pointers from the James Boys."

      "Tighe and Meldrum— Who are they?"

      "Meldrum is a coyote your father trapped and sent to the pen. He's a bad actor for fair. And Tighe—well, if you put a hole in his head you'd blow out the brains of the Rutherford gang. For hiven's sake don't let Jess know who you are. All of sivinteen years he's been a cripple on crutches, and 't was your father that laid him up the day of his death. He's a rivingeful divil is Jess."

      Beaudry made no comment. It seemed to him that his heart was of chilled lead.

      ––––––––

      Chapter V

      The Hill Girl

      The Irish cowpuncher guided young Royal Beaudry through Wagon Wheel Gap himself. They traveled in the night, since it would not do for the two to be seen together. In the early morning Ryan left the young man and turned back toward Battle Butte. The way to Huerfano Park, even from here, was difficult to find, but Roy had a map drawn from memory by Pat.

      "I'll not guarantee it," the little rider had cautioned. "It's been many a year since I was in to the park and maybe my memory is playing tricks. But it's the best I can do for you."

      Beaudry spent the first half of the day in a pine grove far up in the hills. It would stir suspicion if he were seen on the road at dawn,