The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

realized that until I had thought back from the very beginning of when I'd known him. He tricked you up in the hills, didn't he? Dave, he will do it again. And you'll go straight ahead, as you always do, and—"

      "Not with Redmain," grunted Denver. "I fight him as dirty as he fights me. I expect nothin' and I give nothin'."

      She was silent a moment. Then: "Does Eve know—"

      "Lord forgive me, no! She thinks I'm dead."

      Very softly she added a question: "And how about me, David? Did it occur to you I might be hurt too?"

      "I reckon I've always hurt you, Lola."

      "The light of day," said she in a half whisper, "died out." But she shifted to gayety on the instant. "I must not carry on. Who wants to see Lola Monterey in tears? Only women who are loved can afford to show unhappiness. David, my dear, get well. You are scowling because you can't be on your feet, because you are not the old domineering David Denver."

      "Not sure," he mused. "A man does some powerful thinkin', flat on his back. The little round world don't look the same. Maybe I've been a fool. Maybe I've rode alone too long. It's lonely."

      "Then there is hope for you," said she, her red lips dimpling at the corners. "And perhaps some hope even for me." Leaning swiftly down she kissed him. "For old times, David. Be good."

      "You've got to forget I'm alive," he warned her. "You've got to hide your feelings."

      "What have I been an actress for all my life? Isn't that just what I always must do—seem sad when I'm so happy I want to cry out, and seem glad when there's nothing in me but an ache?"

      She went out, trailing grace and vivid color. And the room was again four shabby walls.

      Doc Williamson, returning in the late afternoon, found his patient locked in gray rebellion.

      "You've got to fix me up," said Denver. "What with?" was Williamson's sarcastic rejoinder.

      "What do I care? Use dope, or balin' wire, or an ax. But you've got to do it. You're a doctor, ain't you? Then get busy."

      "For that," promised Williamson, "I'm going to rub you so hard you'll yell like a dyin' Comanche."

      "Go ahead. Try and make me yell."

      "Wait'll I get some hot and cold water."

      Williamson was just rolling down his cuffs and looking rather more tired than usual when Lyle Bonnet returned. Bonnet grinned.

      "Did yuh give him the works, Doc? That sucker bed this mornin' and tried to walk."

      "Sure, all lunatics are like that," said Williamson.

      "What's the news?" was Denver's impatient interruption.

      "The most important item is," reflected Bonnet, "that Steve Steers has posted his intentions of gettin' Dann, and has challenged Dann to meet him any place, at any time."

      Denver swore in round, blistering phrases. "That damn idiot! He can't do it—Dann's too fast for him. We've got to stop it. Listen, you race a man over to Nightingale's. Use any excuse to get Steve here. I'll break the news. I didn't want to do it for another couple days, but we've got to haul him around, or he'll get shot cold. Hurry up."

      THE DUEL

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      Stinger Dann kicked the ashes of his small fire together and ground them out. Sunlight streamed into the glade, the odor of bacon and coffee lingered faintly on—and Red- main's right-hand gunman greeted his fourth day of lone hunting with an accumulated moroseness.

      There were two sides to Dann, neither of them any credit to him. In a pitched engagement, such as with the vigilantes and Denver, he let himself go with an unreasoning and tigerish fury, never considering safety, never slacking off in his desire to destroy and inflict pain. But in this present affair with Steers he was a different man altogether, stolidly patient enough to wait all year for his chance, and avoiding every false move. He might have forced the issue sooner, for he had seen Steve Steers two or three times from afar, and he recognized the fact that Steers was advertising his position and issuing a challenge. In each instance Dann recoiled from the setting, thinking a trap to exist, or considering the odds uneven. So he held back, waiting for the time when Steers, tired of the crossplay, would become reckless. Dann knew the occasion would arise. Because of that belief he kept to the high levels, out of the traveled areas, and changed locations each night. He had waited behind Shoshone Dome, watching the stage road. He had taken a covert position near the Copperhead bridge. Then, shifting his position, he had settled down near Nightingale's ranch. But of all places this was the least profitable. Steers was not using the ranch as a base. Therefore Dann moved south of Starlight and took to his present position, which was on a wooded butte commanding the end of Sundown Valley, the stage road, a half dozen forking trails, and the prairie.

      He had another definite reason for holding off. Not being a fool, he knew no man in Redmain's shoes was to be trusted; in this illicit kind of a life it was dog eat dog, with no scruples shown. During the hours of solitude it had been borne upon Dann that he was practically stationed between two fires. No longer did he have the mass protection of the wild bunch. He was on his own, an isolated outlaw to be shot at. And what was to prevent the bullet from coming out of the wrong direction—Redmain's? Such things happened. He had been a valuable man to Redmain, but the chief treated him scurvily.

      "He's afraid of me," grunted Dann to himself, watching the road below. "He's runnin' the bunch, and he don't want me to interfere. Higher they get, the more nervous they get. I can tell. He's took to watchin' his shadder—and that ain't healthy for anybody that crosses his path. But I was a sucker to leave. He meant somethin' by it. It wasn't just no case of gettin' Steers. Anybody could get that washed-out runt. Why pick me? Yeah, he had an idea, the slippery rat."

      The sun rose higher, melting morning's dew. Three Leverage riders came around one side of the butte, patrolled as far as Starlight, and circled toward their ranch. Dann felt a strong desire to scatter them with his rifle, such being the rankling, surly state of his mind. And momentarily his resentment grew.

      "I was a sucker to leave," he repeated. "Who's done all the hard work for Lou Redmain? Me. He gets the credit. And still he plays his own hand well enough to tell the wide world I shot Denver. I had ought to of stayed. It was smokin' up to a fight between me and him—and it only needed one bullet to settle him. That's my crowd, not his. He's afraid of me, that's what. Well, I'll get this job over with and go back. And we'll see who's—"

      His roving glance came to focus. Beyond Starlight, a rider pursued the Sundown-Ysabel Junction road with a free gait. Dann crouched closer to the earth, sidling a little to keep the approaching man in view. He reached back for his rifle, considered the distance from butte to road, and slowly sent the bolt home on a shell. Tentatively he settled the gun to his shoulder. But in the very act of rehearsing the forthcoming scene he let the gun fall and scurried off to get a view of the reverse slope. The Leverage riders were still in sight. Dann watched them drift along, a scowl deepening on his red face. Then he returned to his original location and swept the green timber on the far side of the road, all the way up to the mouth of Starlight. That canyon was a tricky stretch of country. Denver country with Denver men in it; and the solitary rider had all that to his back as he loped ahead.

      It was Steve Steers. Dann had recognized him at the first far glance. Steers rode with a peculiar flopping of elbows and a distinct swaying in the saddle; moreover, Steers had a favorite horse, colored like a blanket—a small horse that lifted his feet high. Dann leveled his gun on Steers, still engaged in the debate with himself. There was such a thing as missing his target, considering the distance; there was also the ever present possibility of a trap. Dann never forgot that item. And while he tarried, keeping his sight on Steers, the latter went rocketing through the throat of the hills, fell down the long grade, and was beyond reach. Dann cursed slowly, flipping over the rifle's safety. He watched Steers settle to a long straight course southward.

      "He's