Riders West (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

gingerly. He looked now to the seated Hugo, Hugo abruptly rose. "You're puttin' me afoot on the prairie, Bellew?"

      "My apologies."

      Cecile could see no weakening of the deadlock. But the conductor apparently did, for he reached up and seized the bell cord. There was a swift reply from the engine's whistle ahead and an immediate shrilling of the applied brakes. All the other men in the car had turned silent and were watching with an absorbed, inscrutable interest. Hugo's countenance was dry of expression; nothing of his thinking showed through except for a brighter flare of light in his greenish eyes. He said, very briefly:

      "All right—this time, Dan."

      Something of Bellew's preoccupation left him. He stepped back a pace and waited for Hugo to precede him down the aisle. The door opened and let them out, and afterwards there was a moment's strange quiet as the train came to a full halt. Cecile heard feet strike the graveled roadbed; a man in a near-by seat murmured, "Told you so." Then the coaches lurched ahead under a wrenching application of power. The conductor returned to collect Nan's baggage. "Ten minutes to Trail," he warned her. Presently Dan Bellew came again into the coach and walked to the deserted section. For a little while he looked down, rolling a cigarette with an air of abstraction. Cecile wondered about that until the man abruptly reached over and lifted the skirts of the two saddles still lying there.

      He seemed to find something of particular interest.

      Straightening, he studied the car, and when he lit the cigarette the matchlight glowed against a smooth, guarded face. Cecile was startled to hear Nan Avery speak in a clear anger:

      "Arrogance in men is not a pretty thing to see."

      Cecile swung to caution her friend, but she saw instantly that Nan had meant the observation to be heard. Nan sat straight, her chin up—sure sign of her temper—and she was directly meeting the surprised look of Dan Bellew. He had turned; he had withdrawn the cigarette from his mouth. His eyes, Cecile thought, confusedly, could be very bleak and unfriendly. They were now. She had the distressing feeling that he was stripping Nan's mind for his own cool satisfaction. Yet even as she thought so a sure gleam of humor replaced the severity of his glance.

      "Little girls, especially strange little girls, should be seen and not heard," he said and walked away.

      "Why didn't the other man fight back?" fumed Nan.

      "You deserved what you got," said Cecile candidly.

      "What right has he to put anybody off this train?" demanded Nan irritably. "It was outrageous. I hate men who use force like that."

      "Must have been a reason," said Cecile practically. "He doesn't look like one to do anything without cause. Anyhow, why should you care?"

      Nan caught a quick phrase on her tongue and turned to the window.

      After a long period she spoke: "You're right. I shouldn't mind it. Only there is so little fairness in this world, especially among men."

      Cecile was thinking, in half a panic, of other things.

      Through the window she saw the clustered lights of an advancing town. The train was again whistling for a stop, and some of the cowhands were collecting their effects. The conductor put his head into the coach and shouted, "Trail—Trail!" Nan's face was turned back to her, a sign of strain showing through the long-maintained composure.

      "I guess this is the end, Cecile. Remember what I've told you. And be a good girl."

      "It's so damn hard to see you go!" cried Cecile.

      "Don't!" warned Nan. She rose and walked along the aisle. There were quite a few men in the vestibule, and the two women stood silent and constrained while the cars came to a sighing halt. The conductor swung down and held up his arm for Nan. One faint light seeped out of a station house—and that seemed to be all of the city of Trail, to which she had blindly bought a ticket. Behind her was the pressure of the men impatient to be off; but Cecile was clinging to her shoulder, and suddenly she turned and kissed the girl. Cecile, frankly crying, said:

      "You little fool!"

      "Nothing," said Nan in a small voice, "can be any worse than what was." Then she got down and stood uncertainly to one side. Cecile disappeared, the men filed out. Steam jets from the engine made sharp reports through the night, and the bell's ringing rolled resonantly across an emptiness that seemed to have no boundaries. The conductor waved his lantern in a full bright circle and swung up, the cars gathered momentum and slid by.

      She saw Cecile's face pressed against a window, very dim; and presently there was only a line of faintly, glimmering lights curving across the flat land westward.

      She stood there in the darkness, with her luggage around her, ridden by a loneliness she could not help. The rest of the deposited passengers had gone off, and she was quite alone, smothered in the shadows. Small impressions came to her—the smell of sage and wood-smoke, the clatter of a telegraph key. Along the station wall was a sign that read: "See Townsite Jackson." But her mind was on that fast-fading red-and-green glow of the train; and as the lights grew dimmer and dimmer, so did her courage. Out there vanished the last of her old life, gone forever with nothing to replace it: and it was like a dark omen to think that her last view of Cecile had been blurred and uncertain. She found herself thinking desperately: "Why should this happen to me?" As much as she had prepared herself for this final break, the sweeping reaction of helplessness and regret was worse than she had ever imagined it could be; it carried her downward into an abyss from which there seemed no return.

      She heard a shifting of weight on the gravel. That literally dragged her from her reflections. Turning, she found the tall shadow of a man standing by. When he spoke she instantly recognized—with a revival of resentment—the casual calm voice of Dan Bellew:

      "Were you expecting someone to meet you?"

      CHAPTER II.

       THE FORESHADOWED TEMPEST

       Table of Contents

      "No," said Nan, pointedly brief.

      "Then I'd better help you to the hotel."

      It further irritated her that he refused to accept the implied dismissal. He was only an arm's length away, looking down from his height, immovably certain. She couldn't read his expression very well through the dark, but she believed he was smiling with that same faintly amused manner he had used on Hugo in the car. A critical inner voice told her she was being ungracious and a fool, yet her answer went curtly back to him: "I'm quite able to help myself."

      He didn't hear it, or if he did he brushed it aside as being inconsequential. His body swung around to meet the arriving sound of some other person. A shadow, small and narrow, made a breach in the night, and a voice containing the surcharged weariness of the world drifted forward: "Wasn't sure you'd be on this train, Dan. Your horse is in front of Townsite's."

      "Solano," said Bellew, "you lean against the wall over yonder for about ten minutes. If you see anybody walking up the track, come and tell me."

      "Yeah," murmured Solano and backed away.

      Bellew took possession of the luggage. "There is only one hotel," he explained, "and it's a potluck affair. Around the left side of the station."

      Nan closed her lips against a quick, resenting answer and fell in step. He was, she decided, one of those dogged men against which irony made no impression; and she was too weary to argue. When they turned the corner of the station she saw the lights of the town run irregularly down one long street and halt against the farther darkness of the flats. There were a few tall trees growing up from the sidewalks, and the buildings she passed beside were all of weathered boards, set apart by narrow alleys. A rider loped out of the shadows and drew into a hitch rack, leaving a series of dust bombs behind him. He crossed in front of them, threw a musical "Howdy, Dan," over his shoulder, and pressed through the swinging doors of a saloon, Yellow radiance momentarily gushed out, and a confused murmuring