The Ranchman. Charles Alden Seltzer

going toward Dawes?”

      “What do you mean?” Carrington’s eyes flashed as he leaned toward her.

      “Have you and uncle talked business within hearing distance of a stranger?”

      Carrington’s face flushed; he exchanged a swift glance with the other man.

      “You mean that clodhopper with the tight-fitting hand-me-down in the seat behind us—yesterday? He was asleep!”

      “Then you did talk business—business secrets,” smiled the girl. “I thought really big men commonly concealed their business secrets from the eager ears of outsiders.”

      She laughed aloud at Carrington’s scowl, and then went on:

      “I don’t think the clodhopper was asleep. In fact, I rather think he was very wide awake. I wouldn’t say for certain, but I think he was awake. You see, when I came back to talk with you he was sitting very straight, and his eyes were wide open.

      “And I shall tell you something else,” she went on. “During all the time he sat behind you, when you were talking, I watched him, he was pretending to sleep, for at times he opened his eyes and looked at you, and I am sure he was not thinking pleasant thoughts. And I don’t believe he is a clodhopper. I think he amounts to something; and if you will look well at him you will see, too. When he was listening to you there was a look in his eyes that made me think of fighting.” And then, after a momentary pause, she added slowly, “there isn’t anything wrong about the business you are going to transact out here—is there?”

      “Wrong?” he laughed. “Oh, no! Business is business.” He leaned forward and gazed deliberately into her eyes, his own glowing significantly. “You don’t think, with me holding your good opinion—and always hoping to better it—that I would do anything to destroy it, Marion?”

      The girl’s cheeks were suffused with faint color.

      “You are assuming again, Mr. James J. Carrington. I don’t care for your subtle speeches. I like you best when you talk frankly; but I am not sure that I shall ever like you enough to marry you.”

      She smiled at the scowl in his eyes, then looked speculatively at him. It should have been apparent to him that she had spoken the truth regarding her feeling for him.

      The uncle knew she had spoken the truth, for she left them presently, and the car door had hardly closed behind her when Carrington said, smiling grimly:

      “She’s a thoroughbred, Parsons. That’s why I like her. I’ll have her, too!”

      “Careful,” grinned the other, smoothly. “If she ever discovers what a brute you are—” He made a gesture of finality.

      “Brute! Bah! Parsons, you make me sick! I’ll take her when I want her! Why do you suppose I told her that fairy tale about her father having been seen in this locality? To get her out here with me, of course—where there isn’t a hell of a lot of law, and a man’s will is the only thing that governs him. She won’t have me, eh? Well, we’ll see!”

      Parsons smirked at the other. “Then you lied about Lawrence Harlan having been seen in this country?”

      “Sure,” admitted Carrington. “Why not?”

      Parsons looked leeringly at Carrington. “Suppose I should tell her?”

      Carrington glared at the older man. “You won’t,” he declared. “In the first place, you don’t love her as an uncle should because she looks like Larry Harlan—and you hated Larry. Suppose I should tell her that you were the cause of the trouble between her parents; that you framed up on her mother, to get her to leave Larry? Why, you damned, two-faced gopher, she’d wither you!”

      He grinned at the other and got up, turning, when he reached his feet, to see Quinton Taylor, standing beside a chair at the next table, just ready to sit down, but delaying to hear the remainder of the extraordinary conversation carried on between the two men.

      Taylor had donned the garments he had discarded in Kansas City. A blue woolen shirt, open at the throat; corduroy trousers, the bottoms stuffed into the soft tops of high-heeled boots; a well-filled cartridge-belt, sagging at the right hip with the weight of a heavy pistol—and a broad-brimmed felt hat, which a smiling waiter held for him—completed his attire.

      Freshly shaved, his face glowed with the color that betokens perfect health; and just now his eyes were also glowing—but with frank disgust and dislike.

      Carrington flushed darkly and stepped close to Taylor. Carrington’s chin was thrust out belligerently; his eyes fairly danced with a rage that he could hardly restrain.

      “Listening again, eh?” he said hoarsely. “You had your ears trained on us yesterday, in the Pullman, and now you are at it again. I’ve a notion to knock your damned head off!”

      Taylor’s eyelids flickered once, the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening a trifle. But his gaze was steady, and the blue of his eyes grew a trifle more steely.

      “You’ve got a bigger notion not to, Mr. Man,” he grinned. “You run a whole lot to talk.”

      He sat down, twisted around in the chair and faced the table, casting a humorous eye at the black waiter, and ignoring Carrington.

      “I’ll want a passable breakfast this morning, George,” he said; “I’m powerful hungry.”

      He did not turn when Carrington went out, followed by Parsons.

      The waiter hovered near him, grinning widely.

      “I reckon you-all ain’t none scary, boss!” he said, admiringly.

CHAPTER IV—THE HOLD-UP

       Table of Contents

      After breakfast—leaving a widely grinning waiter, who watched him admiringly—Taylor reentered the Pullman.

      Stretching out in the upholstered seat, Taylor watched the flying landscape. But his thoughts were upon the two men he had overheard talking about the girl in the diner. Taylor made a grimace of disgust at the great world through which the train was speeding; and his feline grin when his thoughts dwelt definitely upon Carrington, indicated that the genial waiter had not erred greatly in saying Taylor was not “scary.”

      Upon entering, Taylor had flashed a rapid glance into the car. He had seen Carrington and Parsons sitting together in one of the seats and, farther down, the girl, leaning back, was looking out of the window. Her back was toward Taylor. She had not seen him enter the car—and he was certain she had not seen him leave it to go to the diner. He had thought—as he had glanced at her as he went into the smoking compartment—that, despite the girl’s seemingly affectionate manner toward Parsons, and her cordial treatment of the big man, her manner indicated the presence of a certain restraint. And as he looked toward her, he wondered if Parsons or the big man had told her anything of the conversation in the diner in which he himself figured.

      And now, looking out of the window, he decided that even if the men had told her, she would not betray her knowledge to him—unless it were to give him another scornful glance—the kind she threw at him when she saw him as he sat behind the two men when they had been talking of Dawes. Taylor reddened and gritted his teeth impotently; for he knew that if the two men had told her anything, they would have informed her, merely, that they had again caught him listening to them. And for that double offense, Taylor knew there would be no pardon from her.

      Half an hour later, while still thinking of the girl and the men, Taylor felt the train slowing down. Peering as far ahead as he could by pressing his face against the glass of the window, Taylor saw the train was entering a big cut between some hills. It was a wild section, with a heavy growth of timber skirting the hills—on Taylor’s side of the train—and running at a sharp angle toward