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There was a glint of cynicism behind the admiration in Bozzam’s eyes as he took the chair she indicated, dropped into it and settled back, his gaze still on her. The graces which she so freely exhibited had appealed strongly to him once—and still appealed to him, for that matter—but he was beginning to realize that they were all she had to offer; they were graces in which she traded, which she bartered for ease, luxury, and that admiration which, latterly, he was giving her grudgingly. Something was missing—the abiding spirituality. The game lacked the old fire and Bozzam was beginning to weary of it.

Her own eyes held a slightly malicious flash as she sank into the easy chair. She crossed her hands back of her head and regarded him with a faint smile. “I am getting tired of them; I am surfeited, nauseated; I like chivalrous stories better. Don’t you, Hame?”

“Stories! Bah! Slush! Impossible nonsense! Men are not chivalrous in real life!”

“No-o?” with mild disbelief. “And yet tonight I overheard Jess Cass relating a tale of chivalry with Bozzam City for its setting.”

“You heard Cass telling me about the rumpus? You weren’t reading then, evidently.”

“No. One can’t read dry print when interesting realities are being related at one’s window.”

“Bosh! Interesting? A gun fight? Gawne’s hatred for me?”

“Just how greatly does Gawne hate you, Hame?”

“Plenty. If I’d give him a chance he’d bore me with pleasure.”

“And you think he shot Cass and Connor because of his hatred toward you?”

“What else, then?”

“Chivalry, my dear Hame.”

“Bah! Where is the chivalry in that shooting?”

She smiled mockingly. “Men are blind—aren’t they? What did Cass tell you? Wasn’t it that Gawne ordered him not to mention to Kathleen Harkless that her father belongs to Hame Bozzam’s outfit?”

“What of it? Gawne has always posed as the Colonel’s friend.”

“Hame, you are dense. It is perfectly plain—to a woman. The Colonel sent Joe Allen to meet his daughter. Cass got Allen drunk. That left the field clear for Cass. Gawne interfered, preferring to do the escorting himself. Why? Because the former woman-hater has been—”

“Gawne a woman-hater?” His eyes gleamed jealously, cunningly. “You know that, eh? You must have been trying him!”

“I was,” she said, calmly; “before you—came. I tried many times—in many ways—and failed.”

“You like him, then?” His eyes flamed.

She laughed harshly—a more composed person than Hame Bozzam would have detected the insincerity of it. “I—I hate him!” she declared, vindictively.

Bozzam smiled grimly. “Well, go on. Where’s the chivalry?”

“Oh, bother!” she said impatiently. “Can’t you see? You think Gawne shot Cass and Connor because he hates you. He didn’t. He did it because he has fallen in love with Kathleen Harkless. It is perfectly plain, isn’t it?”

Bozzam’s face reddened darkly. He tried desperately to keep the jealous, malevolent light in his eyes from being interpreted by the woman who was watching him closely; knew he had failed when he saw an ironic smile wreathe her lips, and got up, his lips in a thick pout, now that further attempted concealment would be futile, walked out of the front door, slamming it behind him, and stood on the porch, feeding the fires of his hatred for Gawne with the new fuel—jealousy.

Thumbing the pages of the French novel she had taken from the center table, the woman in the parlor smiled enigmatically.

CHAPTER VI

ACCEPTING A CHALLENGE

Bozzam—and Bozzam’s woman—had erred. Gawne had not been chivalrous, nor had he been in love. He was merely a fool, a fool for wavering, even for an instant, in his conviction of the entire unworthiness of woman. Kathleen Harkless was as fickle, despite her clear, direct-looking eyes, as the others of her kind. Morosely, with sullen, truculent gaze, he scanned the basin, the plateau, the near hills and valleys and the Bozzam trail. Once he turned and looked toward the Harkless ranch—out of sight beyond various doublings of the river—loathing in his glance. A man was a fool to waste his time with women.

It was eleven o’clock, the hour at which, the day before, he had seen her descend from the stage. He had thought, then, judging from her appearance—her trim neatness, and the jaunty set to her head—that she was of the frivolous type, and her subsequent behavior had convinced him of the correctness of his deduction. He settled himself against the wall of the bunkhouse, standing, his legs braced and spread wide, his shoulders sagging, his chin on his chest.

It was a full half-hour before he moved. He would not have moved then perhaps, had it not happened that he heard a sound—seeming to come from around a corner of the building; and thinking it was some one from the ranchhouse he straightened, applied his heavy knife—which he had had in his right hand for some time—to a short branch of chaparral which he had picked up on his way to the bunkhouse. He was whittling mechanically, slightly resentful because of the threatened interruption, when out of the corners of his eyes he saw a horseman swing around a corner of the bunkhouse and halt in front of him.

He stiffened a little, missing one stroke with the knife, and then gazed at the corner with level eyes, which glinted with speculation.

“Hello, Haskell. Get down and visit.”

He watched the sheriff with increasing wonder as the latter slipped down, trailed the reins over the pony’s head and stood beside the animal, patting its shoulder.

“Where’s the boys, Gawne?” The sheriff’s eyes were roving through the open doors and windows of the bunkhouse—a silence, large and eloquent, made his pulses leap. There would be no interference; he had hardly dared to hope for this fortuitous absence of the outfit.

“They were working down the east fork yesterday. I expected them to be in this morning. They didn’t come.”

“I see,” said the sheriff, abstractedly. “So much the better.” He caught a glance from Gawne’s eyes, steady, penetrating, suspicious, and his face flushed hotly.

“What’s up, Haskell?” Gawne stopped whittling.

“Nothin’ to get stirred up over,” said Haskell, placatively, for he had seen a flash in Gawne’s eyes that told him that the other’s suspicions were now definitely centered and that evasion would not avail. “I’m here on official business.”

“Concerning me?”

Haskell nodded. And now that the crisis was imminent the vague dread that had swelled his chest many times during the ride from Bozzam City became an acute fear—a gripping, paralyzing terror. He had been driven to this extremity by his fear of Hame Bozzam; he was racked between the certainty of Bozzam’s vengeance and the hazard of death at Gawne’s hands, and in desperation he had chosen the latter. Yet it had seemed to him, while riding toward the Diamond Bar, that he had chosen wrongly.

Unless, unless—his eyes quickened, and he had to lower them to keep Gawne from detecting the joy in them. For no cartridge belt girdled Gawne’s slim waist; his heavy pistols were not swinging in their accustomed places at his hips! This was that chance for which the sheriff had yearned during the ride from Bozzam City. It was almost too wonderful to be true. Doubting, his nerves a-tingle with hope, he again shot a furtive, downward glance at Gawne’s waist.

No pistols! Nothing but the slim waist covered by a brown shirt crinkled slightly by a narrow belt, which supported blue overalls!

The discovery made Haskell’s pulses leap with relief. And yet he cautioned himself, he must proceed slowly, for there was a chance of there being a gun-sling beneath the brown shirt; if there was—But he was moderately swift in drawing his own weapon, and if Gawne kept his hands at his sides—where they were now—there was not much danger. If Gawne raised his hands—attempted to fold his arms over his chest, moved his hands to his waist, or lifted them at all—he would draw and shoot. Later, he would justify his action by saying that Gawne had resisted arrest.

He grinned felinely at Gawne, an impulse of bitter cruelty seizing him. He hoped, almost, that Gawne would move a hand toward his shirt; it would enhance his reputation immeasurably should he ride in to Bozzam City with Gawne’s body, to report that he had downed the Diamond Bar owner in a gun fight.

“Concernin’ you.” Haskell looked fairly at his prospective victim now—cold confidence, and some contempt, radiating from him. “Concernin’ you,” he repeated with taunting emphasis. “Yesterday you was in Bozzam City. I didn’t happen to be right on hand, or I’d have been saved this trip here. Law an’ order, Gawne—that’s what’s got to be observed in Bozzam City. You done shot up Jess Cass an’ Dan Connor, an’ it’s up to me to confine you in the jail ’till such a time as you c’n be duly tried for disturbin’ the peace. I reckon you’ll come without fussin’.” His eyes gleamed viciously and his right hand hovered over the butt of the pistol at his hip, the fingers curved, claw-like.

He saw Gawne’s jaws close, the muscles slowly grow tense; saw his eyes glow with a sudden fierce fire. Haskell’s hand went lower, but stopped when Gawne smiled.

“Have your joke, Reb.”

“Joke, hell!”

“Why, Connor didn’t get hurt much, sheriff; the bullet broke his shoulder, I think; nothing more. And Cass only got a scratch. They only got what was coming to them. You must know they framed up on me.”

“That’ll have to be proved.”

“Did you make Bill Hilliard prove that the stranger he plugged—”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“The stranger drawed first.”

“So did Cass and Connor and the others.”

“It’ll have to be proved,” grinned Haskell, maliciously, his eyes alert.

Gawne smiled mirthlessly and began to whittle the branch of chaparral, making deliberate, long strokes with the knife.

“Bozzam City is developing a civic conscience, it seems, Reb—in my case, particularly—eh? I can’t believe you are serious.”

“I’m damn serious.” The sheriff’s voice was harsh with cold intolerance. “I’m takin’ you in—dead or alive! Understand? Dead or alive! Anyway you want it. An’ I’m warnin’ you that I’d sooner take you in dead. There’s a heap of people here would be plumb tickled.”

“Hame Bozzam, for instance,” gently said Gawne. He looked up at the sheriff and smiled faintly, as the latter’s face reddened.

“I reckon Bozzam would be one of them,” said Haskell. “I’m done foolin’—go get your horse!”

Gawne did not look up. “I’m giving Meteor a rest today,” he said quietly.

“You got other hosses.”

“None that I care to ride.”

Haskell’s face grew scarlet with rage. “You’ll walk then, damn you!” he declared. “I’ll rope you, an’ if you try any funny business I’ll guzzle you an’ drag you into Bozzam City!”

It was only when Haskell half-turned to mount his pony to carry out his threat that he had a quick divination that Gawne was misleading him; he realized then that Gawne’s apparent calmness was the calm that precedes the storm; for as he turned slightly sideways he had a glimpse of Gawne’s eyes—narrowed, intent, blazing with a wanton fire—and Haskell paused in the act of mounting his pony and faced him again, his muscles tensed for action.

Gawne’s smile, as Haskell turned, made the sheriff gasp—it was cold, designing, wicked. It sent a thrill of trepidation over Haskell; there arose a doubt in the sheriff’s mind. Was this situation to be lost to him, after all? Was there a gun under the brown shirt?

These questions filled the sheriff’s soul with fear and indecision. He stiffened, listening, for Gawne was speaking:

“Bozzam sent you here, Haskell. Don’t lie, for I can see it in your eyes; you’ve had your orders; there’s no other explanation for your coming. Now, listen. I haven’t interfered with you or Bozzam’s crowd until now, because none of you have crossed my trail. But I’m interfering now! Your law is a joke—it’s administered for Hame Bozzam’s benefit. You’re a weak-kneed, spineless crook, and you can’t run in any jail ranikaboo on me. Dead or alive, eh! Well, here I am; come and get me!”

Gawne ceased whittling; his hands were hanging at his sides—the knife in the right, the chaparral branch in the left—his eyes had taken on that dread expression of mingled bitter wrath and confidence—the unspoken promise of destruction that had palsied men of greater courage than the sheriff.

Haskell was fascinated, frozen to immobility. And yet across his consciousness flitted the knowledge that Gawne had no side weapons; that his hands were at his hips and must come upward in order to grasp the gun that was concealed under the brown shirt—if a gun were there.

It must be there, or Gawne would not be so confident. Haskell drew a slow, deep breath. The crisis had come. He tentatively lowered his right hand six inches—he had lifted it to the pommel of the saddle. No movement on Gawne’s part resulted. No word was spoken—Gawne’s gaze, apparently, was not on the stealthily moving hand, but upon Haskell’s eyes. Haskell could not tell, for Gawne’s gaze did not appear to be centered upon any particular thing; his eyes seemed to be swimming in unfixed vacuity.

Haskell lowered his hand still farther. Gawne’s hands were still at his sides.

“Damn you!” snapped Haskell; “I’ll take you—dead!” His right hand dropped, swiftly, surely, to the pistol butt.

Gawne’s right hand moved, snapping forward like a sudden snake. A slender shaft of glimmering steel flitted across the several feet of space that separated the two men, beginning at Gawne’s right hand and ending at the sheriff’s, and Gawne’s knife sank deep into the sheriff’s arm, midway between elbow and wrist, the handle rigid,, the point projecting on the other side.

Haskell screamed with pain, cursing fearfully. He threw his left hand around, trying to grasp the weapon, but before the hand could manage its task a vengeful fist landed at the base of his ear. He reeled, and tried to duck and dodge other blows that were landing on him from all directions.

Gawne went at his work without rancor, but with remorseless energy. Five minutes after he had flung the knife he desisted, leaving Haskell unconscious in the dust in front of the bunkhouse door.

Gawne stripped the man of his weapons, pulled the knife from his arm, bound up the wound with Haskell’s neckerchief, mounted Haskell’s pony, rode it to the ranchhouse, got his cartridge belt and pistols and rifle; rode back to the corral, saddled and bridled Meteor, led Haskell’s pony beside the man, lifted him into the saddle, mounted and rode behind him, urging his pony on with quirt and voice.

About three hours later, sitting on the porch of his ranchhouse, Hame Bozzam saw Haskell and Gawne riding toward him. He had seen them coming from afar, but did not recognize them until they reached the edge of the timber. Five minutes afterward Bozzam was facing them, with only eight or ten feet of space intervening.

Haskell had been punished fearfully; he was still weak, and reeled in the saddle, his chin on his chest. In Gawne’s eyes was still the gleam of conflict, and Bozzam reddened and paled and shifted uneasily under his gaze.