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surely against Terry this day. Yet still he

determined to dodge the issue. He started toward the door, taking care

not to walk hastily enough to draw suspicion on him because of his

withdrawal, but to the heated brain of Larrimer all things were

suspicious. His long arm darted out as Terry passed him; he jerked the

smaller man violently back.

 

“Wait a minute. I don’t know you, kid. Maybe you got the information I

want?”

 

“I’m afraid not.”

 

Terry blinked. It seemed to him that if he looked again at that vicious,

contracted face, his gun would slip into his hand of its own volition.

 

“Who are you?”

 

“A stranger in these parts,” said Terry slowly, and he looked down at the

floor.

 

He heard a murmur from the men at the other end of the room. He knew that

small, buzzing sound. They were wondering at the calmness with which he

“took water.”

 

“So’s Hollis a stranger in these parts,” said Larrimer, facing his victim

more fully. “What I want to know is about the gent that owns the red hoss

in front of the store. Ever hear of him?”

 

Terry was silent. By a vast effort he was able to shake his head. It was

hard, bitterly hard, but every good influence that had ever come into his

life now stood beside him and fought with and for him—Elizabeth Cornish,

the long and fictitious line of his Colby ancestors, Kate Pollard with

her clear-seeing eyes. He saw her last of all. When the men were scorning

him for the way he had avoided this battle, she, at least, would

understand, and her understanding would be a mercy.

 

“Hollis is somewhere around,” declared Larrimer, drawing back and biting

his lip. “I know it, damn well. His hoss is standing out yonder. I know

what’ll fetch him. I’ll shoot that hoss of his, and that’ll bring him—if

young Black Jack is half the man they say he is! I ain’t out to shoot

cowards—I want men!”

 

He strode to the door.

 

“Don’t do it!” shouted Bill, the storekeeper.

 

“Shut up!” snapped Baldwin. “I know something. Shut up!”

 

That fierce, low voice reached the ear of Terry, and he understood that

it meant Baldwin had judged him as the whole world judged him. After all,

what difference did it make whether he killed or not? He was already

damned as a slayer of men by the name of his father before him.

 

Larrimer had turned with a roar.

 

“What d’you mean by stopping me, Bill? What in hell d’you mean by it?”

 

With the brightness of the door behind him, his bearded face was wolfish.

 

“Nothing,” quavered Bill, this torrent of danger pouring about him.

“Except—that it ain’t very popular around here—shooting hosses,

Larrimer.”

 

“Damn you and your ideas,” said Larrimer. “I’m going to go my own way. I

know what’s best.”

 

He reached the door, his hand went back to the butt of his revolver.

 

And then it snapped in Terry, that last restraint which had been at the

breaking-point all this time. He felt a warmth run through him—the

warmth of strength and the cold of a mysterious and evil happiness.

 

“Wait, Larrimer!”

 

The big man whirled as though he had heard a gun; there was a ring in the

voice of Terry like the ring down the barrel of a shotgun after it has

been cocked.

 

“You agin?” barked Larrimer.

 

“Me again. Larrimer, don’t shoot the horse.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“For the sake of your soul, my friend.”

 

“Boys, ain’t this funny? This gent is a sky-pilot, maybe?” He made a long

stride back.

 

“Stop where you are!” cried Terry.

 

He stood like a soldier with his heels together, straight, trembling. And

Larrimer stopped as though a blow had checked him.

 

“I may be your sky-pilot, Larrimer. But listen to sense. Do you really

mean you’d shoot that red horse in front of the hotel?”

 

“Ain’t you heard me say it?”

 

“Then the Lord pity you, Larrimer!”

 

Ordinarily Larrimer’s gun would have been out long before, but the change

from this man’s humility of the moment before, his almost cringing

meekness, to his present defiance was so startling that Larrimer was

momentarily at sea.

 

“Damn my eyes,” he remarked furiously, “this is funny, this is. Are you

preaching at me, kid? What d’you mean by that? Eh?”

 

“I’ll tell you why. Face me squarely, will you? Your head up, and your

hands ready.”

 

In spite of his rage and wonder, Larrimer instinctively obeyed, for the

words came snapping out like military commands.

 

“Now I’ll tell you. You manhunting cur, I’m going to send you to hell

with your sins on your head. I’m going to kill you, Larrimer!”

 

It was so unexpected, so totally startling, that Larrimer blinked, raised

his head, and laughed.

 

But the son of Black Jack tore away all thought of laughter.

 

“Larrimer, I’m Terry Hollis. Get your gun!”

 

The wide mouth of Larrimer writhed silently from mirth to astonishment,

and then sinister rage. And though he was in the shadow against the door,

Terry saw the slow gleam in the face of the tall man—then his hand

whipped for the gun. It came cleanly out. There was no flap to his

holster, and the sight had been filed away to give more oiled and perfect

freedom to the draw. Years of patient practice had taught his muscles to

reflex in this one motion with a speed that baffled the eye. Fast as

light that draw seemed to those who watched, and the draw of Terry Hollis

appeared to hang in midair. His hand wavered, then clutched suddenly, and

they saw a flash of metal, not the actual motion of drawing the gun. Just

that gleam of the barrel at his hip, hardly clear of the holster, and

then in the dimness of the big room a spurt of flame and the boom of the

gun.

 

There was a clangor of metal at the farthest end of the room. Larrimer’s

gun had rattled on the boards, unfired. He tossed up his great gaunt arms

as though he were appealing for help, leaped into the air, and fell

heavily, with a force that vibrated the floor where Terry stood.

 

There was one heartbeat of silence.

 

Then Terry shoved the gun slowly back into his holster and walked to the

body of Larrimer.

 

To these things Bill, the storekeeper, and Jack Baldwin, the rancher,

afterward swore. That young Black Jack leaned a little over the corpse

and then straightened and touched the fallen hand with the toe of his

boot. Then he turned upon them a perfectly calm, unemotional look.

 

“I seem to have been elected to do the scavenger work in this town,” he

said. “But I’m going to leave it to you gentlemen to take the carrion

away. Shorty, I’m going back to the house. Are you ready to ride that

way?”

 

When they went to the body of Larrimer afterward, they found a neat,

circular splotch of purple exactly placed between the eyes.

CHAPTER 31

The first thing the people in Pollard’s big house knew of the return of

the two was a voice singing faintly and far off in the stable—they could

hear it because the door to the big living room was opened. And Kate

Pollard, who had been sitting idly at the piano, stood up suddenly and

looked around her. It did not interrupt the crap game of the four at one

side of the room, where they kneeled in a close circle. But it brought

big Pollard himself to the door in time to meet Denver Pete as the latter

hurried in.

 

When Denver was excited he talked very nearly as softly as he walked. And

his voice tonight was like a contented humming.

 

“It worked,” was all he said aside to Pollard as he came through the

door. They exchanged silent grips of the hands. Then Kate drew down on

them; as if a mysterious; signal had been passed to them by the subdued

entrance of Denver, the four rose at the side of the room.

 

It was Pollard who forced him to talk.

 

“What happened?”

 

“A pretty little party,” said Denver. His purring voice was so soft that

to hear him the others instantly drew close. Kate Pollard stood suddenly

before him.

 

“Terry Hollis has done something,” she said. “Denver, what has he done?”

 

“Him? Nothing much. To put it in his own words, he’s just played

scavenger for the town—and he’s done it in a way they won’t be

forgetting for a good long day.

 

“Denver!”

 

“Well? No need of acting up, Kate.”

 

“Who was it?”

 

“Ever meet young Larrimer?”

 

She shuddered. “Yes. A—beast of a man.”

 

“Sure. Worse’n a beast, maybe. Well, he’s carrion now, to use Terry’s

words again.”

 

“Wait a minute,” cut in big blond Phil Marvin. Don’t spoil the story for

Terry. But did he really do for Larrimer? Larrimer was a neat one with a

gun—no good otherwise.”

 

“Did he do for Larrimer?” echoed Denver in his purring voice. “Oh, man,

man! Did he do for Larrimer? And I ain’t spoiling his story. He won’t

talk about it. Wouldn’t open his face about it all the way home. A pretty

neat play, boys. Larrimer was looking for a rep, and he wanted to make it

on Black Jack’s son. Came tearing in.

 

“At first Terry tried to sidestep him. Made me weak inside for a minute

because I thought he was going to take water. Then he got riled a bit and

then—whang! It was all over. Not a body shot. No, boys, nothing clumsy

and amateurish like that, because a man may live to empty his gun at you

after he’s been shot through the body. This young Hollis, pals, just ups

and drills Larrimer clean between the eyes. If you’d measured it off with

a ruler, you couldn’t have hit exact center any better’n he done. Then he

walks up and stirs Larrimer with his toe to make sure he was dead. Cool

as hell.”

 

“You lie!” cried the girl suddenly.

 

They whirled at her, and found her standing and flaming at them.

 

“You hear me say it, Kate,” said Denver, losing a little of his calm.

 

“He wasn’t as cool as that—after killing a man. He wasn’t.”

 

“All right, honey. Don’t you hear him singing out there in the stable?

Does that sound as if he was cut up much?”

 

“Then you’ve made him a murderer—you, Denver, and you, Dad. Oh, if

they’s a hell, you’re going to travel there for this! Both of you!”

 

“As if we had anything to do with it!” exclaimed Denver innocently.

“Besides, it wasn’t murder. It was plain self-defense. Nothing but that.

Three witnesses to swear to it. But, my, my—you should hear that town

rave. They thought nobody could beat Larrimer.”

 

The girl slipped back into her chair again and sat with her chin in her

hand, brooding. It was all impossible—it could not be. Yet there was

Denver telling his story, and far away the clear baritone of Terry Hollis

singing as he cared for El Sangre.

 

She waited to make sure, waited to see his face and hear him speak close

at hand. Presently the singing rang out more clearly. He had stepped out

of the barn.

 

Oh, I am a friar of orders gray,

Through hill and valley I take my way.

My long bead roll I merrily chant;

Wherever I wander no

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