Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition. Ernest Haycox

as if a powerful light flashed on her face. What little pleasantry his features held up until then vanished. "Was that corporation involved?" he asked sharply.

      "Yes."

      "I shall be extremely interested in meeting your man," he said, and motioned to the immaculate secretary hovering anxiously at hand. "Nicholas, I'm going out for an hour. No—no. I don't give a rap if lunch does get cold. Ward off these fellows for me—keep 'em humoured. And now," turning to Lorena, "I shall be pleased to follow you."

      Lorena led him into the street and toward the trail. Three or four prominent citizens came along in hot pursuit; Costaine waved them back, and thus the two of them struck up the slope, saying not a word. Lorena had fought a battle, she had nothing more to offer. And the Senator seemed buried in his own thoughts. They cut off the main trail and went up the short little pathway to the cabin. The Senator looked to her inquiringly, and she motioned him inside. Tom and Quagmire apparently had seen them come, for they were standing in the centre of the room.

      "Tom, this is Senator Costaine. I have told him about your trouble with the ranch. I know he can help you if you'll explain."

      With that she turned about and left, hearing the dry, rasping voice of Costaine carry an abrupt question over the interval. It was almost as if the man cross-examined a witness. Lorena sat on a stump and waited. A half hour, an hour; the immaculate secretary came panting up among the trees. "Where in God's name is the Senator? What have you done with him?"

      Costaine ducked out of the door, grimmer than before. The secretary spread his arms. "They're waiting for us—and you've had no lunch. It will be an all-afternoon trip into the hills. I can't allow you to neglect yourself like this, Senator!"

      Costaine seemed not to hear the man. He stood a moment in front of Lorena. "My dear girl, you have rendered me a favour. I think we have got wind of something that will scorch as big a scoundrel as ever lived." Then he swung down the trail with the secretary, and she heard him giving the younger man abrupt orders. "Never mind, Nicholas, never mind. What's a meal missed? I've discovered something about Ignacius Invering's peree. He's a gone goose, Nicholas. As for the trip into the hills, that must be postponed. We start for Nelson immediately."

      With Quagmire on hand to keep watch and with Tom mending swiftly—and becoming more and more impatient at each wasted hour—Lorena was relieved of her long vigil. The men slept out in the shed and took their meals in the cabin; and during the following five days she often saw them loitering in the trees, out of earshot, talking earnestly. She never intruded on these councils; rather she drew back within herself and went about those innumerable chores a woman never fails to find. If she had her worries—and she understood that as far as San Saba and Lispenard were concerned there was yet to be a day of reckoning—she kept them hidden. No matter what the future held, it could never by any stretch of the imagination deal with her as harshly as had the past month. And so she was content.

      One day Quagmire went to Deadwood and returned with a horse and saddle for Tom; and for an hour the latter rode around the hills, testing himself. When he came back, he slid down with a kind of tight-lipped triumph. Still he said nothing, but she observed that Quagmire made a second trip to town for supplies. And that night at supper the puncher sent a mysterious glance at Gillette and murmured, "Well, I got it."

      At breakfast the next morning Gillette seemed unusually preoccupied. Quagmire left the cabin and disappeared in the thicket; and as if that were a signal Gillette came directly to the issue. "We can't stay put any longer, Lorena. I came here to get San Saba, and instead he about got me. Well, it's just a score I'll have to leave unsettled. If I don't hustle back to the ranch I'm apt not to have one. So we've got to pull out."

      She was of a sudden busy at a dozen odd things, and each of those things seemed to keep her face turned from the man.

      "Lorena—it still goes, doesn't it?"

      "I don't change overnight, Tom."

      "Well, I didn't think so, but a man like me can't expect too much good luck, so I figured I'd better make sure. But—but look here."

      She turned. Gillette stood with his back to the wall, looking harried. "You've got to know something. Quagmire only told me last night, and if it makes any difference to you, the fact is, Kit Ballard is still there at the ranch, and she told Quagmire she was waiting. I want you to know I'm free. What's past is past—and cold as ashes. I didn't ask her to come, I didn't want her to come, and I'm under no obligations. You know where my heart is, Lorena."

      "That is your own affair, Tom. I told you once I'd never pry into it."

      "Well, you've got a right to know what you're jumping into. Fifteen minutes after we get home she'll have to pack her trunk—but I wouldn't want you to come up against that situation without knowing of it."

      She walked over to him, and one hand dropped lightly on his shoulder. She went up a-tiptoe better to meet his eyes. "Whatever happens, I will never doubt you. Never! And I want you to believe the same about me. Oh, Tom, sometimes the whole thing frightens me—it seems as if it can't be true!"

      He gathered her into his arms. "By Judas, what right have I got of doubting? You bet it's true. Quagmire and I are riding into town now to settle our affairs. I'll be bringing back a preacher—and a spring bed wagon and team for you to ride in."

      "That's not necessary. I can ride the saddle, it will bring us home quicker."

      "Nothing's good enough for my wife," said he gaily. He kissed her and turned out of the door, red-faced. Lorena's silver laugh followed him down the slope and from the distance he turned to grin at her. "You've got to remember I'm not used to this sort of thing yet."

      "Some day it will be so old a story you'll forget."

      "Not while sun shines or grass grows!"

      Quagmire came out of the trees and joined Tom. Together the two of them followed the trail to town. Quagmire already had dickered for a wagon and a team, and Tom verified the bargain, paid for it, and went rummaging around the stores for accessories. He bought a light tent, a patented oven, and sundry dishes. He bought this and he bought that while Quagmire made relays from store to wagon, gloomy and skeptical. When all the purchasing was done and Gillette returned to the wagon he was somewhat staggered at the burden it made. Quagmire only spat on the ground and echoed a scant phrase.

      "Yo' figgerin' to enter the freight business? Better hire six more hosses."

      "Hush," grinned Gillette. "On a day like this I'm apt to do 'most anything. Quagmire, nothing's good enough for that girl. Now where's a preacher?"

      No more than an hour elapsed from the time they entered Deadwood to the time they crawled upward through the trees. The smaller trail would not admit the wagon, and they were forced around in and out of the occasional alleyways. Gillette hallooed at the cabin and jammed on the brakes impatiently. Quagmire kept his seat, and the parson gingerly slid down and combed his whiskers with his fingers. Gillette walked toward the open door.

      "Lorena—all right, Lorena."

      She had no answer for him. When he looked into the cabin all the humour and the anticipation were swept from his face. She was not there. And that was only a part of the story, for every movable piece of furniture in the room was overturned, dishes were shattered, and his questing eyes saw a piece of her dress as big as his hand and ripped on all sides lying on the floor. That room had seen a tremendous struggle. Lorena had been kidnapped!

      XVI. A DUEL

       Table of Contents

      San Saba was no fool; he had all of an animal's perceptions, he almost instinctively knew when to avoid danger and when to crowd his luck. In no other way could the man have survived so long his doubtful and shaded existence. Sometimes those perceptions prompted him to do queer things; more than once, when in the full tide of fortune, he had quietly taken to his horse and left the scene of his victories behind him, apparently impelled by no other motive than that of plain cowardice.