The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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 these guineas left behind? Why not pack 'em to Sundown and let the county treat 'em for a while? Otherwise they'll get word to Redmain and tattle. When he comes back—"

      "He won't come back," broke in Denver softly.

      "I ain't sure about that."

      "No. He'll have nothing to come back to. We're putting him on the country for good."

      "What're you driving at?" insisted the woman.

      Denver raised his voice to the uneasy camp followers of the outlaw bunch. "You've got five minutes to pull your belongings out of doors. I am burning the town."

      "Not a bad idee," grunted Bonnet. "I never did burn a town afore. Be somethin' new in a short but sweet life."

      "Lou will kill you!" cried the woman.

      "That's one of the two possibilities," said Denver. "The other is that I may kill him. I reckon you'll only have about four minutes left. It ain't my desire to burn any of your possibles, so I'd suggest you hurry."

      The rest of the riders followed him to the street. "Set fire to four or five places at the same time," said Denver. "This joint is dry as pitch, and it'll go in one quick roar."

      "Ready?" inquired Bonnet.

      "Give these poor devils their chance, Lyle."

      The black barkeep walked from the saloon barehanded. "I come here without nothin' and I'll leave without nothin'. Ain't takin' no favors from you, Mister Denver."

      "That's too bad," drawled Denver. "But maybe you'll do me one. Maybe you'll take a message to Redmain for me."

      "I do nothin' for you, Mister Denver. Never."

      "Just as well. You'd be too slow. Now I see horses in that barn yonder and a wagon. Hitch up the wagon and turn out the rest of the animals."

      The denizens of this condemned town straggled from the buildings. Denver moved down to the end of the street and sat quite still in the saddle. His attention reverted to the stable, and he spoke casually to the nearest hand. "The big boy takes too long to hitch a wagon. Go down there and let him smell the end of your loop." Instead of one, three men galloped off to carry out the chore. Denver felt the restlessness of his party, and he knew they wanted to do the job and be away. But he tarried until he thought all of the people had retrieved their possessions. They came toward him, a shabby, disreputable set that stirred him to faint pity. Aimlessly they milled at the street's end. Out of the stable came the wagon and team, the giant lashing the beasts into a dead run. He had three loops around his neck and three riders spurring ahead, threatening momentarily to haul him out of the vehicle. Denver raised his arm and the ropes slacked away. The giant halted the wagon and rolled his eyes at Denver.

      "'Fore God, you'll suffer fer this!"

      "Somebody suffers," was Denver's laconic answer. He raised his gun to the sky and fired a single shot in warning to whoever might have loitered in the buildings. Then he called out to those men waiting to apply the match. "Let her burn."

      The woman who had enough spirit to defy him ran against his horse. "You—you'll find a day to regret this!" she cried. Of a sudden Denver bent down, one arm sweeping her aside. There was the flat, startling report of a gun. The woman's right hand was wrenched up, revealing the weapon. Denver seized it and threw it far aside; and even then the tight calm remained on him.

      "Can't say I blame you," he muttered. "Was I in your place I reckon I'd do the same."

      The smell of smoke drifted down the street. A sinuous tongue of fire licked up a porch rail. The woman screamed at him.

      "Now I know why they call you Black Dave! You call yourself a man—and do this?"

      "What's your name?" demanded Denver.

      "May!" said the woman, spitting it at him.

      "A pretty name. The sort of a name that fitted the girl your mother figured you'd be. There's pride still in you. You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you? What for? For a man—a man not worth an inch of your finger. You've lived in this ratty hole a long spell, haven't you? No comforts, no safety, nothin' cheerful. And all you've got to show for the bargain is that bundle of clothes in your arm. You've been pretty badly cheated."

      "Who are you to talk?" she cried. "You're gloating because you've hurt a few poor fools that can't hurt you back! You ought to have the hide whipped off you!"

      "I reckon the shoe begins to pinch," he replied. "You never felt that way when your men folk rode back from killin' a man, did you? You knew Lou Redmain was a killer, didn't you?"

      "What of it? You're one yourself, you dog!"

      "That's right," said Denver slowly. "As black and dirty-handed as any other. When a man starts on this business he swallows his conscience and closes his mind. And before I'm finished you and your kind, as well as a lot of other people, will consider me worse than you ever considered another human bein'. This is war, girl. And I'm deliberately forgettin' there ever was such a thing as a white man in your tribe of cutthroats. Get in that wagon, you people, and clear out of here. I don't care which way."

      High flames shot from the pitch-dry buildings. The men who had set the blaze dodged through the street, shielding themselves from the increasing heat. Denver looked grimly at the black giant.

      "I said you'd be too slow. Redmain, wherever he is, will see my message in a few minutes. Come on, boys."

      He gathered his party and spurred up into timber. Lyle Bonnet quartered down from a remote angle of the trees, where he had been drawn by his ferreting curiosity.

      "I think that outfit hit for the country back of Leverage's place. Tracks indicate it."

      "Well," snapped Hominy, "we've burned the rat out, anyhow. That's one detail."

      "Just one place we won't have to look for him," agreed Denver. "But it's a long hunt yet. Redmain's got a talent for this business. Close in here and listen to me careful. I want these things done exactly like I tell you."

      He looked behind. As they ran along the pine-cramped trail he talked to Hominy and Bonnet in subdued phrases.

      FIRES AT NIGHT

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      Denver cantered down Prairie Street and racked his horse before Grogan's around the middle of the afternoon. Dismounting, he slipped the cinch of his saddle a trifle and proceeded toward the saloon; but he was arrested on the threshold